


All the climbing, all the falling

by Alene



Series: Climbing & Falling [1]
Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Isak's POV, Isak/OC (briefly), M/M, Miscommunication, Pining, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-03-30 09:11:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13948413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alene/pseuds/Alene
Summary: Isak and Even never saw each other after that night at the Plaza. Five years later Isak studies molecular biology in Bergen and keeps running into someone tall and blond.It rains a lot, there are mountains to climb, and some things start to fall into place.





	1. The man who tries to feed his hunger by gnawing stone is a FOOL

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Evakteket birthday challenge](https://evakteket.tumblr.com/post/169772863962/happy-birthday-to-us-okay-so-its-not-quite-our). My prompts were: Oslo-realistic (which ended up being more Bergen-realistic), future fic & canon divergence. 
> 
> The title is a line from Next To Normal – I Miss The Mountains, because I'm secretly a musical theatre nerd. All the chapter titles are from [this poem](http://tristealven.tumblr.com/post/170654099525/frank-bidart-in-the-western-night) by Frank Bidart. 
> 
> The wonderful, wonderful [Imminentinertia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imminentinertia/pseuds/imminentinertia) has been nice enough to beta this and practically hold my hand every time I've needed it. Thank you bb!

The first time Isak sees him is at the Bar Kollektiv. He doesn’t even fucking like the Kollektiv, it’s way too hipster-y for his tastes, with its exposed brick walls and industrial feel that was on trend at least a few years ago when the bar opened. People here look like they study art or media or something equally stupid. 

But Mathias had insisted on coming. It’s Thursday, because they’re not old enough to come here on Fridays or Saturdays. Mathias has been pregaming since their Gene Structure and Function study group ended at 4 p.m. and he’s clearly having way more fun than Isak is, chatting up a pretty brunette by the bar. Isak is pretty sure it’s not actually Tuva, the girl Mathias was supposed to meet here. He’s been going on and on about Tuva for weeks now, showing Isak and Abdi her instagram account and countless photos they have absolutely no interest in.     

Abdi had made his way to the shuffleboard tables as soon as he had gotten a beer in his hand, looking for people willing to play a game or two with him. Which left Isak by himself not even ten minutes after they had arrived to the bar. He nurses his stupidly expensive beer and tries to find a place where he could sit without looking quite as much of a loner as he is.

The only thing worse than this could be ending up at Garage on a wine tasting night, Isak thinks. And then his eyes are drawn to a tall blond in the middle of the room.  _ Even _ , Isak’s brain supplies before he even has time to properly register what he’s seeing.

Even, or the guy Isak’s brain insists is Even, is wearing a greyish t-shirt with a print Isak can’t quite make out this far. For a second he’s in full view, mid-laugh and so, so beautiful. Then people around him move, someone even taller blocks the way, and Isak can’t see him anymore.

Isak panics, needs to see more, tries to walk closer. But there is no one tall and blonde here anymore. 

Suddenly, he can’t find Mathias or Abdi either. Can’t make out faces in the sea of people rising and welling around him. It feels like there are too many people, too much noise around. Like something heavy is sitting on his chest, making his lungs collapse. The room is spinning and the pink lights make him ill. He does the only thing he’s been wanting to do ever since they came here forty-five minutes ago.   

He walks out of the bar.

As soon as he does, he realises that he left his bike at Mathias’ place where they pregamed. Walking to Sandviken just to get it and then riding all the way to the other side of town would be such a hassle. He resists the urge to kick every other bike in front of the bar, barely. 

At least it’s raining only moderately, which is as good as it gets in Bergen this time of the year. Or any time of the year – apart from May and August, maybe – if Isak is completely honest. When he moved here a little over two years ago, he spent his first week at the uni as wet as a drowned rat and downright miserable. Now he barely notices the rain most days. It helps that he’s dressed in goretex from head to toe. It makes him look like a nerd, but what can you do? At least everyone in this town looks like a nerd. 

Isak takes a deep breath and shoots a quick text to Abdi and Mathias that he decided to leave. And then he starts walking. Across Torgallmenningen, Vaskerelven, and Olav Kyrres Gate to Nygårdsgaten, past the nightclubs and bars there. Past the loud and boisterous groups of people on their way to those nightclubs and bars. Past the run-down and mouldy treehouse next to Grieghallen where Abdi shares a flat with a few guys from Lærerhøgskolen. 

The more Isak walks the more he feels the adrenaline surge in his veins, something cold and heavy settling where his internal organs should be, making him shiver a little. He feels a little stupid for leaving the bar like that and a little more stupid for letting Even to get to him like that. 

Walking should help him calm down. It doesn’t. He’s aware there’s a lot of research about physical activity reducing anxiety, but it never seems to work for him that way. Probably because he’s such a failure in that way, too.  

The farther he is from the bar more convinced he gets that he imagined the whole thing. Maybe it wasn’t Even at all? But it really looked like him. Felt like him. 

Isak has no idea why he’s reacting like this. Even’s just a guy who fucked him out of the closet and disappeared afterwards. Literally. The last time Isak saw him he was butt-naked and walking out of that hotel room, out of Isak’s life. A few confusing text messages the next day, and then nothing. Nada. Even probably went back to Sonja. Figured he wasn’t into dick, after all.   

And it was fucking five years ago, too. 

Like, if it really was Even tonight, Isak shouldn’t be reacting like this. And if it wasn’t, well, that doesn’t make sense either. Maybe he’s hallucinating. But why would he hallucinate a guy he hasn’t seen or thought about in ages? 

Does it start like this? 

He wonders why he has never asked his mamma what it is like, what the first signs are? It’s something they probably should talk about now that she’s okay and he’s okay and they’re okay. Now that they’re talking to each other again.  

He’s always thought it’s something very obvious, like believing that God sends you messages through your microwave oven or something. That’s what it is like in TV shows. And that’s pretty much how it was for his mamma when he was old enough to realise that something was off.

But of course he would hallucinate the guy he once, for a brief moment, thought he was in love with. When he was young, naïve, and desperately looking for something to make him feel less empty. And maybe that’s what God is for his mamma, just something to fill the empty parts.

Maybe he wants Even the way his mamma wants God?

Okay, he’s officially losing it. 

Schizophrenia is hereditary, he knows. And sometimes when he can’t sleep he falls down the Google Scholar rabbit hole and reads an article after article about it. About the typical age of onset, about the link between cannabis and schizophrenia.

He used to smoke so fucking much in high school.

These days, he mostly doesn’t. Where it used to soothe his anxieties, now it usually manages to make them ten times worse. His friends smoke sometimes, Mathias and Abdi and Oda. Marte doesn’t, hasn’t even tried. The others never give him a hard time when he declines, though.  

But when Jonas and the boys visited him last spring, Mahdi brought some quality green with him. Isak smoked then, mostly for old times’ sake, because it used to be his and Jonas’ thing and he had missed Jonas a lot. A lot. 

He ended up waking in the middle of night feeling like his anxiety was a road roller driving over him repeatedly, making his limbs flat and impossible to move. The boys were sprawled on mattresses all over the room, Jonas next to his bed, Mahdi in front of the sofa and Magnus next to the door. They were sleeping soundly like babies, and Isak couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound. Couldn’t get his brain to believe that everything was okay.

He hated it.            

  
  


***

 

Isak forgets his encounter with Even or Not-Even pretty quickly. Thinks it was nothing. He hadn’t slept well that week. He was in a weird mood that night. Those moods always seem to dissolve in daylight, he’s noticed.  

It’s early November, exams are only a month away. So, he has other things to think about. It’s his third year studying molecular biology. Only one semester left of the Bachelor’s degree. He knows he’s going to continue to a Master’s degree, then get his PhD and eventually do research. Like, that’s the plan A. He’s checked and double-checked the application dates for all the master’s programmes so many times that he really shouldn’t have those recurring dreams about missing the deadline anymore.     

His pappa still keeps sending the same amount of money every month, like he has done ever since Isak moved to the kollektiv at seventeen. It must be some kind of guilt money, Isak figures, because technically he’s an adult now and his pappa shouldn’t have to provide for him anymore. He has no idea how it is for other students, though. Talking about parents is a thing he avoids as much as he can. 

He has been living in the student housing on Løbergsveien ever since he came to Bergen. It’s cheap, cheaper than what his share of the rent was in the kollektiv. He shares the kitchen and bathroom with a few others. Two girls and a guy. They’re pretty okay, but he doesn’t actually see them that much. To the extent that he gets a little startled when he goes to the kitchen and there is in fact someone in there.

Like right now. 

He’s dragging his feet through the hall, still half-asleep, and opens the door to find Cathrine in the kitchen, making eggs and looking chirpy as ever.

“Morning,” Isak mumbles and maneuvers himself around her to get to the fridge. Cathrine hums as she stirs the eggs on the pan, shooting Isak a warm smile. They don’t actually know each other that well. Cathrine moved in only a few months ago, around the same time as the semester started. 

Isak spreads butter on two pieces of bread, adds some cheese and sliced ham, eats both pieces while the coffee is still dripping, pours the coffee in the thermos, puts the thermos in the backpack and is halfway out of the door before he remembers to say bye to Cathrine. 

It’s dark and wet when he gets outside and unlocks his bike. Tuesday mornings are the bane of his existence. Organic Synthesis and Analysis is Isak’s only elective course this semester and of course he managed to pick one that has both 8 am lecture  _ and _ 6-hour lab every week. At least the lab is on Wednesdays so he doesn’t actually have to suffer eight hours of chemistry in one sitting. But an 8 am class on Tuesday – or on any day – is enough on its own. 

It doesn’t help that Realfagbygget, the building where the class is held, is a little further away and on top of a fucking hill. It takes at least ten minutes to get there, when most days Isak gets to the uni in less than six minutes. But of course his only 8 am class is also fucking difficult to get to. 

Okay, maybe a ten minute bike ride doesn’t constitute as fucking difficult to get to. But Isak’s not into it anyway.

He has seriously considered dropping the class, it crosses his mind approximately every tuesday at 7:30 am when his alarm wakes him up. But then he wouldn’t graduate on time. And he actually kind of wants to take this class. He just wishes it wouldn’t be so fucking early.  

Marte is waiting for him outside the lecture room. Her thick black hair is wet from the rain. Isak shows his thermos, and she gives him a thumbs up. 

 

***

 

The second time it happens Isak doesn’t see him, exactly, but he hears him. They are stepping into the Dromedar Kaffebar, he and Oda, when two girls and a guy sweep past them on their way out. Oda is telling a story about a Belgian tourist they had found injured on their sunday hike from Ulriken to Fløyen, her Stavanger dialect with rolling r’s lulling Isak in a comfortable sleepy mood, when he suddenly hears a laugh that goes right through him and makes his stomach drop all the way to his toes. He turns around quickly and sees a tall guy walking along Strandgaten with two blond girls in identical raincoats. The guy has a bright blue beanie. 

Even doesn’t have a blue beanie, Isak thinks irrationally enough, and then shakes himself out of it. He hasn’t seen Even in five years. He never knew the guy, really. He really doesn’t know what kind of beanies he wears. He also hasn’t slept properly in weeks. He’s fucking losing it, he knows. He knows. 

  
“He hadn’t even told anyone that he was going hiking,” Oda says, annoyed. “Like that’s the number one rule in the mountain code. How stupid can you be?”

“Ummm”, Isak says. It’s obvious that Oda is expecting him to react in some way, but he hasn’t really heard anything besides the word stupid in the past two minutes. And Oda could very well be calling _him_ stupid for all he knows. And wouldn’t be that far off. Or at least that’s how Isak feels about himself these days. 

“You do know that you’re supposed to tell someone your planned route when you go to the mountains, right?” Oda asks, again. 

“Yeah, I do.” 

Right. They were talking about that tourist.

Isak isn’t actually that much of an outdoor person, unlike Oda and probably every other person he knows in his programme. It’s weird, like he’s the only one in the biology department who isn’t actually that into nature. But his parents weren’t exactly the type to take him to hiking every weekend when he was a kid. His parents weren’t the type to do anything as a family, if Isak’s being honest. It took him a long time to understand that all those cabin tours and trips to Spain everyone else kept talking about were completely off the table for them. 

Because his pappa was ashamed of to be seen with his mamma.

Oda touches his shoulder gently and Isak realises the barista is looking at him expectantly, his eyebrow raised in impatient, slightly judgemental manner. Isak rattles out his coffee order: a pot of french press, no milk, no sugar, as usual – he’s drinking it to stay awake, not to enjoy himself – and adds a piece carrot cake on a whim, just to stop the barista giving him a stink eye.

“Why are you so distracted anyway?” Oda asks once they’ve sat down and he has offered half of the cake to her. 

“I don’t know,” Isak shrugs. “Stress, I guess.”

“You and me both”, says Oda, smiling brightly and tying her long mousy brown hair in a bun. She doesn’t look stressed at all. She adjusts her big glasses on her nose and starts rummaging for her notes. They’re here to get their lab report for this week’s Applied Bioinformatics done before the weekend, for once. Isak turns on his laptop from sleep mode, ready to type as soon as Oda tells him to. 

Oda is Isak’s oldest friend in Bergen. They met during the introductory week in their first year. She had a lot of shorter hair back then, eyebrows almost as thick as Jonas’s, and a rainbow pin on her yellow Kånken backpack. Isak had sat down next to her on the first day, thinking there would be a good chance he’d never have to turn down her romantic advances. He’s been out for years and he still doesn’t know how to turn down a girl without making it awkward. 

He’d been right about Oda, although his gaydar isn’t particularly trustworthy in general. She’s loud and bright, unapologetically gay and in so many ways like female version of Eskild that Isak sometimes treats her with the same fond exasperation that has become his default reaction to Eskild over the years.  

He sometimes wonders what he has done to deserve all these people who burn brighter than the sun – Jonas, Eskild, Oda, even Even for a short while – flocking around him when he’s just this quiet, grumpy, tired thing with nothing to offer. Just Isak. 

“You know what we haven’t done in a while?” Oda says an hour later as Isak’s typing down the final sentences in their report.

“Mhmm, what?” Isak wonders and erases a word he had accidentally typed twice in the same sentence. 

“Been to Fincken, just you and me”, Oda continues. “We really need a break from all the straights, I think.”

“I guess we really do”, Isak admits and feels how a smile tugs in the corners of his mouth. A night out in a gay bar is probably exactly what he needs to let out some steam and get his mind off of these bizarre sightings of Even in a town 600 kilometres away from where they originally met.

“Isak, I’m serious,” Oda pokes him with a finger she used just seconds ago to scoop carrot cake frosting in her mouth. Ew. “When was the last time you even hung out with a guy who was actually queer? Or you know, who wasn’t either Mathias or Abdi? 

Isak slaps Oda’s hand away and shrugs. He doesn’t remember, actually. 

At least she didn’t ask when was the last time he got laid. So, maybe she isn’t totally similar to Eskild. Sometimes she’s a little more tactful.

 

***

 

Fincken on a saturday night is probably one Isak’s favourite places in Bergen. He doesn’t come here often, and it’s obvious that a lot of the people are regulars, they know each other, yell excitedly over the music, but still, Isak has never felt like an outsider here. 

Maybe it’s partly about who he was when he came here the first time. Out and proud and ready to take over the world. Or at least this corner of the world. It’s a freeing feeling he’s never really experienced in gay bars in Oslo. His first time at one was disastrous, he was miserable, closeted and very, very drunk, and the only good thing about that night was meeting Eskild. He doesn’t even remember that part, only everything that came afterwards. The basement, the feeling of being cared for.  

In his mind the gay clubs of Oslo are forever associated with two different periods of his life. When everything he knew was collapsing. And when he was newly out of the closet and heart-broken. Eskild took him out a lot back then, it was his way of trying to make everything better. It’s just that Isak was still weird about it, still scared shitless that someone who didn’t know would see him going to a gay bar.  _ And then they would know _ .   

Now he relishes in the fact that he can come to this space, stand inside these walls and no one will assume that he’s straight. It’s a powerful feeling, not having to explain himself, not having to correct people constantly. He’s still as straight-passing as they come, and wearing the same goretex armour as every other guy in this town doesn’t quite help his case. 

Oda is dancing with two girls Isak has met in passing before. She winks and waves to Isak, and Isak salutes with his beer bottle, smiling, feeling content. The ambient track that’s been playing forever, or so it seems, turns into something else, something with a heavy beat and a female voice that gets everyone around Isak cheer and race to the dance floor. Isak doesn’t recognize the song, but obviously others do. 

There is this guy, he’s dancing at the edge of the dance floor, wearing tights and a corset that ends just below his pecs. Or what would be pecs if he wasn’t too skinny to actually have muscle there. He’s smiling a seductive smile, trying to coax Isak to dance. Isak smiles back and laughs, when the guy takes the beer bottle from his hands and places it on the closest flat surface, pulling Isak to himself.

Isak thinks back to the time he got scolded by Eskild for saying that he will never wear tights or mascara. He still thinks that he won’t, it’s just not him. But over the years he has learned to speak about it in a tone that offends people a little less. He has nothing against the guys who want to dress like that. In fact, it can be a little hot. Sometimes. 

“Hi,” the guy says, still smiling but now it’s more happy and excited than artificially seductive. 

He asks something, but Isak can’t make out the question when everything is so damn loud around them.

“What?” Isak yells over the music, backing up a little that the guy can see his lips moving. 

“What’s your name?” the guy repeats, now yelling it in Isak’s ear.

“Isak,” Isak says.

The guy says something back, maybe that his name is Daniel, but Isak isn’t sure he got it right. 

He’s not going to ask again, though, so he smiles and puts his hands on maybe-Daniel’s shoulders. He falters a little when his hands meet bare skin, had forgotten about the corset already, and moves his hands to the waist instead. The guy laughs, a gentle rumble that Isak feels in his own chest, and moves Isak’s hands back to the bare skin.

Okay then, Isak thinks and kisses the guy. 

It’s nice. Nothing spectacular, but nice. The feeling of lips moving against lips, the warmth of the guy’s chest against his own. Isak gets a bit lost in his own head, lets his mind wander to times it actually was spectacular. Admittedly there hasn’t been very many of those. A certain time at a certain hotel comes to mind, makes Isak shiver a little.  

Maybe-Daniel seems to take it as a sign that he’s doing something right, because he lets out a purring sound and moves his leg between Isak’s, moves his hands to Isak’s ass and starts grinding.

Isak tries to focus on the now, on the guy in his arms. They make out a little more, then the guy grips Isak’s arm and pulls him away from the dance floor, towards the bathrooms. 

He’s really assertive in a way Isak usually doesn’t care for. But he lets it be, doesn’t really have anything to contribute to this anyway. The guy maneuvers Isak to a bathroom stall, locks the door and opens the button of Isak’s jeans at the same time, in a move that’s almost impressive. Then he drops to his knees and goes back to that artificial, seductive smile from before. 

Isak lets his back hit the wall and closes his eyes. He feels the guy roll a condom on his dick now, thankful that he seems a decent enough person to do it without asking. Isak’s really not in the mood for talking right now. 

The first lick makes Isak flail a little with his arms even though it’s is dulled by the condom. He grips the guy’s head, and his hands meet a short buzz-cut. It feels entirely wrong, but he keeps petting it for the lack of anything better. The guy finds a rhythm soon after that, and Isak conjures images from his favourite porno, imagines the blond, skinny porn star with fair skin and icy-blue eyes to help things along a little. 

Afterwards, Isak is still panting and trying to compose himself when maybe-Daniel looks at him from his kneeling position and winks. Isak manages a weak smile, lets his hand stroke the short blackish brown hair one more time.

“Thanks babe,” maybe-Daniel says with a wide smile, gets up from the floor and disappears from the bathroom.

Isak takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a moment. Then he removes the condom, ties it up and discards it in the bin. He takes his time buttoning up his jeans, washes his hands and looks in the mirror. He looks the same as he always does. No one would be able to tell that he just got laid for the first time in four months. 

Getting out of the bathroom he checks his phone, texts Oda:  _ i’m going home  _

_ Me too _ , comes the reply. And then another one:  _ with Emilie :D :D :D _

Isak sends back a thumbs up emoji, nods to some people he vaguely recognizes. 

Then he leaves.  

 

***

 

Eskild calls. 

Eskild never calls. They never actually talk on the phone. 

Sure, they still have their old housemate group chat going, years after every single one of them have moved out of the kollektiv in Deichmans gate. 

And sure, he and Eskild facetime sometimes on weekends when they’re both hangover and slightly more emotional and lonely than they usually care to admit. Eskild keeps chattering away about his annoying co-workers or his latest hook-up, and Isak tries to write his lab reports, humming occasionally to show Eskild that he’s still listening. 

So, Eskild never calls. Never in the middle of a day in a weekday. And now it’s wednesday, half past twelve, and Isak’s stuffing his face in Realfagbygget’s cafeteria, trying to convince himself that going back to the chem lab after his break is what’s best for him. An adult thing to do. Even though all he wants to do is magically teleport himself back to Løbergsveien, crawl into his bed, and sleep for a year.

And now his phone is ringing, Eskild’s name blinking on the screen.

It’s enough to make panic rise in his chest.  

Isak swipes to answer the call, but his voice isn’t working.

He coughs, tries again:  “Yes?”

“Isak, it’s about Linn,” Eskild sounds like he’s calling from underwater, distant and distorted. He doesn’t wait for Isak to acknowledge him. Just goes on.

“Like, she’s totally okay. Or as okay as she can be, considering. It’s just… she wasn’t feeling too good, I think? And then she checked herself into the hospital because--,” Eskild’s voice cracks and it sounds like he’s taking a few quick breaths. “Because she was scared she’d do something to... to...”

“To herself?” Isak asks, can’t take Eskild’s stuttering a second longer. It sounds a little like Eskild sniffles on the other end. He doesn’t acknowledge Isak’s question in any other way.

It’s so unfair, Isak thinks. He really thought Linn was doing much better. They all thought so, even Linn herself. But he guesses that’s how it often is with mental illness; it comes and goes, just never leaves you completely. He’s done a fair share of research himself. After his mamma finally got diagnosed. And, you know. After everything that happened with Even, after Sonja told that he was manic. 

“Should I come home?” Isak asks, finally. Then: “I’ll come home. Tonight.”

He doesn’t stop to think how easily the word  _ home _ comes to him, even now, even after two and half years in Bergen. Even when he hasn’t had anything resembling an actual, physical home in Oslo for a while now. His old childhood home long gone, his mamma moved out, his pappa moved on. The kollektiv gone. Even Jonas’ parents don’t live where they used to. Where Isak used to spend more time than in his own home.

He doesn’t go back to the chem lab that day.

 

***

 

So, the third time Isak runs into Even is at the airport and they’re boarding the same plane. Now it’s obvious that it actually is Even, with a bright blue beanie and all; he notices Isak first, tilts his head to the side, and gives a small, unsure smile. 

If Isak wasn’t so exhausted, he would maybe, possibly, smile back.

If Isak wasn’t so exhausted, he would note that Even looks older. Handsomer.

As it is, Isak stares for a few seconds and blinks. Before he knows how to react, before he can summon the energy to react in any way, Even’s smile has faltered and he has turned around to look at their gate. It looks like there is finally some movement happening.

There are a few people between Even and Isak in the queue, but they’re not quite as tall as Even is. Isak keeps staring at the back of Even’s neck, those few strands of hair peeking from under the beanie, as they walk the long tunnel-like corridor to the plane. He almost misses his seat on row 10, because Even keeps walking, continues his way somewhere back. Isak has to turn around and go back a couple of steps, which delights absolutely no one in the queue behind him.

Ignoring the angry looks the best he can Isak settles down in his window seat, buckles the seat belt, and realises that  _ of course _ he left his Gene Structure coursebook in the backpack. The backpack that’s now in the overhead compartment. He takes a look at the guy sitting next to him – big, with a permanent scowl on his face – and decides that asking him to move again isn’t worth it.

He closes his eyes, just for a second.

 

***

 

Isak wakes up approximately 45 minutes later as they touch down at Oslo Airport. After a moment’s confusion and disorientation he remembers where he is and tries to stretch his legs. Subtly, without bothering the big guy next to him. It doesn’t work. 

Sighing, he fishes out his phone and swipes the airplane mode off, waiting for the familiar ping of incoming messages. There are only a few, mostly in the group chat he has with his friends in Bergen. Abdi is letting everyone know that he has finally managed to figure out who he hooked up with last saturday. The whole thing has been like watching a fucking mystery series on TV.

Apart from the mysterious saga of Abdi’s hookup there’s a private message from Marte. She asks where Isak disappeared to, and wants to know if he needs her to cover for him in case the teacher asks where he is. Isak texts a quick answer –  _ Oslo, family emergency _ – and pockets his phone just as people begin moving forward on the aisle.

 

***

 

Exiting the transit area Isak hears Eskild’s shrill voice before he sees him. 

“Isak! I’m here!” he yells and waves his hand frantically.

Isak, who’d been heading towards the exit, changes course and ends up in Eskild’s arms in just a few long strides. For a moment he presses his nose in Eskild’s neck and breathes in.

_ Home _ , he thinks. But what he says out loud is: “You didn’t have to come all the way here, Eskild.”  

“Of course I had to,” Eskild whispers. “It’s not every day I get to see my baby gay.”

Isak lifts his head just enough to show Eskild how hard he’s rolling his eyes.

“Not a baby gay anymore,” he grumbles.

The look Eskild’s giving him says  _ shut up, you’ll always be baby gay to me.  _ At least, if Isak’s reading it correctly. And he’s like 99,8 % sure he is.

As Eskild loosens his hold a little and sort of turns Isak around in a signal that the sappy stuff is now over and they can get a move on, Isak sees a blue beanie in the corner of his eye and flinches before he can make himself stop. Which of course alerts Eskild that something is off and he follows Isak’s eyes to Even, who’s standing two or three metres away, lips pursed and an unreadable look in his eyes.

And for the second time in that day Even turns around and walks away from Isak.

“Was that…?” Eskild asks, surprise and worry etched on his face.

“Yeah.” Isak honestly didn’t think Eskild would even remember who Even was. But apparently he did.

“What was that about, then?”

“I don’t know,” Isak hesitates, tries to formulate his thoughts for a few seconds. “I guess he lives in Bergen now.”

“Okay?” Eskild is still looking apprehensive. “Are you guys talking again?”

Isak wants to laugh. It’s not like they really talked the first time around. Or they did, he guesses, but not about anything important. It was parallel universes and brains that were alone. Talk fueled by jay, mostly.   

“No, we’re not,” Isak answers and it comes out more bitter than he intended.

Eskild seems to understand that Isak really, really doesn’t want to talk about this. Because after a short silence he changes the subject.

“So, Linn. She went to the ER this morning but they moved her to a psychiatric ward like right away. She didn’t even have to wait.”

Isak nods. “So where is it, the hospital?”

“Oh, Vinderen. Not that far away from Ullevål, I guess? Noora is there right now, but they have visiting hours until seven,” says Eskild. “We have still time to go today if we go right away.”

At least it’s not the same place where Isak’s mamma ended up when someone outside their stupid dysfunctional family finally figured out that she’s not well and called an ambulance on her. Isak’s still hazy on the details. Doesn’t know who it was and how it happened but has imagined it many times. Mostly it’s the screams he imagines. How his mamma must’ve screamed when they came to get her.

Because didn’t she always say that  _ they _ would come one day.

Isak only found out what had happened four days later. It was his own fault, too. He had ignored pappa’s phone calls for days. Thought that he’d surely text if he really had something important to say. How wrong he’d been.

Finally pappa had called Jonas’ dad, who had called Jonas, who had then called Isak.

Isak remembers how it felt to go to the ward for the first time. He doesn’t remember the smell, doesn’t know why people always talk about hospital smell. But he remembers mamma, drugged out of her mind and so, so tiny. It was like she was the child and Isak was the adult now. Isak had grown at least ten centimetres since he’d moved out. But he was convinced that it wasn’t just that. Mamma must’ve gotten smaller, too.

 

***

 

When they get into Linn’s room, she’s sleeping. Noora’s sitting in the corner, knitting away. She picked up knitting after her second break up with William. It calms her, she claims. It’s amazing how many woollen hats and mittens she has given Isak over the years, all despite his protests. He can’t wear them in Bergen anyway. They get soaked and heavy and start to smell like wet sheep.

Noora gets up as soon as she sees them and gives a long, tight hug to both of them.

“Now that you’re here,” she says, “I think I’ll head home. I’m in serious need of a shower.”

Eskild steals a glance at Linn, sees that she’s still sleeping, and lowers his voice: “What about her parents?”

“I called them,” Noora shrugs. “They’ll see if they can come by tomorrow.”

Eskild huffs but doesn’t say anything. Then he and Noora have a complicated discussion using only their eyes and eyebrows. Isak gets the gist of it: parents suck.

“Okay then, bye guys!” Noora says, finally, and turns around to call out a slightly softer “Love you, Linn!” before leaving the room.

Linn lets out a sound that’s part murmur, part whine, and changes her position slightly but doesn’t actually wake up. Eskild looks at her fondly at first, and then shakes his head.

He seems to realise something because his head snaps up a little and he looks at Isak, eyes a little wide now.

“Have you eaten today?” he asks.

“Umm… I was just eating bread when you called me,” says Isak.

“But that was like--,” he looks at the clock on the wall, “six hours ago.”

“Well, yeah,” Isak shrugs. It was.

“I’ll go get us something to eat, then,” Eskild decides and marches out of the room.

Isak drops his backpack on the floor and goes to sit in the chair that was occupied by Noora earlier.

“Hey Linn,” he says, quietly, and just looks at her.

“Mh-mm, hey,” Linn mumbles but doesn’t open her eyes.

Isak startles a little. “Jesus, were you awake the whole time?”

“Yeah,” Linn yawns. “Didn’t just feel like talking, that’s all.”

“Okay,” says Isak. He knows the feeling. “How are you doing?”

Linn’s quiet for a moment, turns to look at the ceiling.

“I don’t know,” she says then.

Isak knows that feeling, too. He looks around the room for a moment. Notes the curtains. White, boring. There’s another bed, too. But it’s empty. There isn’t even a duvet on there, but Linn has probably taken it because she seems to have two.   

“Linn, would it be okay if I held your hand?” Isak asks. Pretends his voice doesn’t break a little after saying Linn’s name.

Linn gives a tiny nod, and moves her hand like a millimetre towards Isak.

Isak takes her hand and squeezes it. Linn tries to smile at him but only manages to make a tired grimace. Isak squeezes her hand again, hopes that she understands that he understands.

“They gave me these meds,” Linn says.   

Isak hums. Nods. They tend to do that.

“And it’s like… Like I don’t feel anything at all, now. Or, I feel empty? Just this morning it felt like there was so much love inside me that I was drowning in it. And I had no one to give it. No one wanted it, so it was just there, suffocating me. And then they sent me here and gave a few pills, and poof! It’s gone. No love no more. Empty.”

Jesus fuck, Isak thinks and blinks his eyes, stares at the white, boring curtains. He’s not going to cry here.

 

***

 

Eskild comes back with a plastic bag and hands it to Isak. Isak looks in and sees bread rolls. Fanta. And is that  _ kransekakestenger _ ? He takes out a chocolate bar, but Eskild stops him. 

“That one is for Linn,” he says.

Isak hands the chocolate to Linn. “Okay, and kransekakestenger?” he asks.

“Oh, those are for you. They have almonds, lots of protein and good fats, you know.”

“Also lots of sugar, I think,” Isak points out and opens the Fanta bottle.

“You still like Fanta, right?” Eskild asks.

“Yeah, I still like it,” Isak says, laughs a little. “And for the record, I do love kransekake. So thank you, Eskild.”  

  
  


***

 

Isak stays rest of the week in Oslo. 

Eskild and Noora both have to work, but Isak goes to see Linn every day. At one o’clock in the afternoon. That’s when the visiting hours begin.

Linn has therapy and whatnot before lunch and it’s exhausting, apparently, so she tends to sleep the afternoon away. But it’s quiet in her room and Isak gets more reading done than he has in weeks.

Of course there’s the fact that he took only one textbook with him. He could read ebooks on his phone, but that’s just fucking awful and gives him a headache, so he doesn’t even try. Just reads the Gene Structure and Function coursebook over and over. At least he’s going to ace that exam. Or he probably is. There’s always room for fucking up.    

He calls his mamma, too, and tells that he’s in Oslo for a few a days. Mamma is excited to hear from him and invites him for coffee. Isak promises he’ll come on Saturday.

At night he sleeps in Eskild’s bed, in Eskild’s tiny studio apartment in Løkka. Every night they end up holding each other, and Isak thinks that he’s never done this, slept so close to someone without it being sexual. He doesn’t even remember sleeping between his parents as a child. And when he got older and had sleepovers with other kids, mostly Jonas, he always kept his distance. Knew even then that he shouldn’t get too close or he’d end up liking it too much.

He doesn’t talk about it with Eskild, but it seems like he understands anyway. Holds Isak a little tighter at night and ruffles his hair in the morning.

  
  


***  

 

On Friday night Isak invites himself to Jonas’ place. Mahdi and Magnus come too. They have agreed on a quiet night, a few six-packs shared between the four of them, that sort of thing. Isak’s seeing his mamma tomorrow and everyone is having exams in a week or two, so they’re not exactly eager to spend the weekend hung over. 

This time when Jonas brings out a joint, Isak says no. And no one questions it. He doesn’t even know why he expected them to. Maybe because it has been such a big part of what they do as friends for so long now.   

Magnus has met someone new, finally. After all the heartbreak he went through because of Vilde. Her name is Andrea, and they talk about her, a little. Everyone else has met her except Isak.

“I just don’t know,” Magnus says. “I feel like all we do is have sex. Sex, sex, sex. Like why can’t we go to movies for once or something?”

And isn’t that the weirdest thing to hear from Magnus.  

“It’ll blow over,” Jonas says, passing the joint to Mahdi. “In a few months you’ll be complaining that you never have sex anymore.”

“Dude, did it blow over for you and Eva?” Mahdi asks with a grin. Everyone knows that they still can’t keep their hands away from each other when they’re in the same place. Even after all these years.

“Nah, but that’s me and Eva.”

Mahdi holds his hand out for a high-five and Jonas obliges, slapping his hand against Mahdi’s. His movements are little slowed by the weed. He looks happy.

“I can only hope I’ll ever get to meet someone like that,” Mahdi sighs. “Like, that’s the dream. Someone you love  _ and  _ want to have sex with.”

Magnus nods. Isak guesses that the love part isn’t quite there yet with Andrea. Maybe not the sex part either if Magnus wants less of it.

Jonas turns to look at Isak with a soft, warm smile on his face. A smile that probably would have made Isak’s stomach to swoop once upon a time, but now it just makes him smile back. Sometimes Jonas gets a little sappy when he’s high.

“What about you Issy babe?” Jonas asks. “Any boyfriends?”

“No,” Isak laughs. His mind flits back to the hook-up last week, but there isn’t much to tell. He got his dick sucked. It was okay.

Besides, he’s never gotten completely comfortable about sharing stories like that with the guys.

He thinks about the look Even had given him at the airport a few days ago, blue eyes, pursed lips.

Jonas raises his eyebrow at Isak, like he knows that there’s something Isak isn’t telling.

“Noooo, nononono, no boyfriends,” Isak reiterates,  “— just school, you know.”

It sounds fake even to his own ears.

 

***

 

Mamma lives in a nice two bedroom apartment that she bought after the divorce was final. She lets Isak in as soon as he rings the buzzer, almost like she’s been waiting for him by the window. 

Isak takes the stairs two at the time. His legs are so long that climbing stairs in a normal way always feels a little awkward for him. It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s actually a little happy to see his mamma. Absolutely nothing.  

The apartment door is wide open and mamma is standing there, waiting. She takes his coat and ushers him in the kitchen right away.

She has stopped dyeing her hair. It’s almost gray now and Isak wonders if her meds make her look older than she is. Because she isn’t even fifty yet. He’ll have to google that later.

“I've been going through some stuff,” mamma says once she’s finished loading the coffee maker and has switched it on.  

“What stuff?”

“You know, all that old stuff they brought here when I moved in. l haven't felt like looking at until now.”

“Okay.”

Mamma holds out a photo to him.

“What is it?” Isak asks.

“Just take it,” mamma urges, smiling.

In the picture Isak is maybe nine or ten and he’s holding Lea in his arms. He's beaming widely, excitedly, but Lea looks horrified in the way cats usually do when they’re held by children. Isak remembers that day. He’d gotten his arms scratched only seconds after pappa took the photo. And Lea had disappeared under the couch as soon as she’d freed herself from Isak’s hold.

Later that night she’d come to Isak’s room, though. Hopped up on his bed and curled around on his legs, purring loudly.

”I’m so sorry that we lost her,” mamma says.

Isak takes one more look at the photograph and feels a wistful pang in his stomach. He doesn't know who he misses more. Cat or the boy he once was, with bright eyes, big smile, trusting heart.

”Me too," he says.

 

***

 

On Sunday the first snow falls in Oslo. 

Eskild walks him to the Central Station late that night. It’s dark, because this time of the year it’s dark practically all the time. But it’s not as overwhelming now that there is snow. It’s colder now, and it isn’t snowing as much as earlier, only tiny little snowflakes that float in the air, glimmer under the street lights.

They’re mostly quiet and walk slowly, following the river bank down to the city centre. The water looks pitch-black and somehow wrong in the middle of all the white.     

Before Isak boards the train to the airport, Eskild stops him and gives him a tight hug.

“Thank you for coming,” he says. Words come out muffled against Isak’s neck.

“Of course,” Isak replies and tries to free himself from Eskild’s hold. “I really have to go now. I don’t want to miss the plane and spend the night at the airport.”

Eskild kisses Isak’s forehead, lightly.

“Okay,” he says.

  
  


***

 

Back in Bergen, walking home from the tram stop in wet, black darkness, Isak gets a notification that pappa has sent him 2000 kroner. There’s a message attached:  _ flights.  _

Isak hadn’t even told him that he was in Oslo. Mamma must have asked him to send the money.

Oh well, Isak’s not complaining. He texts back two words.

_ Thanks, pappa. _

 

***

 

Exams come and go, and Isak passes them all – despite his anxieties – with A’s and B’s. Which everyone else could’ve guessed except Isak himself. 

He passes organic chemistry, too.  His chem teacher doesn’t even ask where he disappeared that one week. She listens to Isak’s unprompted explanation about a sister that got hospitalized. It’s not a lie. Not really, if Isak is completely honest with himself. So, maybe that’s why she believes him so easily. Just nods and writes something down.

It rains all through Christmas and New Year’s.

Isak flies back to Oslo for two days, spends Christmas Eve with mamma and Christmas Day with Linn and Eskild. He gives his mom a scarf from Oleana, chosen with Marte’s help. She said it would be nice with something that’s made and designed in Bergen.

For Eskild he has a promise of treating him to a night out at Fincken the next time Eskild visits. Written on a free postcard advertising the power of healing crystals. Isak found it at the Café Aura’s counter. For Linn: a bulk pack of black socks and a bottle of Fun Light. He may have known that girl almost six years now, but he still has no idea what she likes. Socks are always useful, right?  

In January there’s all of a sudden snow and ice, and Isak can’t ride his bike for two weeks. He has to get up earlier and walk. He could take a bus, but he would still have to walk a kilometre to get to the bus stop and then sit on the bus for like three minutes or something. He’s not about to pay for a bus card just for that.

He’s doing a lab project this semester, which means that he’s working three days a week with a group researching nuclear protein-polyphosphoinositide complexes. Basically, they’re trying to find a way to prevent cancer and type 2 diabetes.

His boss, Maite, is nice, if not a little absent-minded Spanish woman in her late 30s or early 40s. She’s tiny and loud and has treated Isak from the beginning with the same amount of respect as she treats all the other members of the lab. It’s exhilarating: to feel that he’s believed in, listened to, that he can maybe one day make a difference. It solidifies Isak’s future plans. This is what he wants to do.

 

*******

 

Even moves into Løbergsveien in February. 


	2. I asked you why you were here; your answer was your beauty

Isak is coming home from the lab when he sees Even and two other guys unloading boxes from a rental van. It makes him stop.  

At first Isak thinks that the guy with long dark hair is the one moving in, but that misconception is destroyed when the guy asks where Even wants the boxes.

Isak doesn’t know the guys, apart from Even. But he kind of ends up saying hi to them. He’s been staring at them too long already, so it would be weird if he didn’t. Then he goes to his room and wants to bang his head against the wall a little.  

At least Even said hi back. So there’s that.

But the thought of him now living in the same building is enough to send Isak spiralling. He considers – for a very brief moment – asking Eskild if they could facetime. But Eskild’s awfully protective of him, and not the biggest fan of Even after everything that happened.

Eskild _can not_ know about this.

At least not until Isak himself knows what _this_ even is.      

He’s well aware that he keeps overreacting to everything that has to do with Even. But his thoughts have been on a perpetual loop ever since that encounter at the airport.

What if Even hadn’t left the hotel room that night? Or what if he had, but Isak hadn’t told him to stop texting the next day? Or what if Isak had, but Even hadn’t listened to him and had continued to text anyway? Or what if Even hadn’t, but Isak had been brave enough to contact him after that?

What if Isak had actually been brave enough?

What if?    

So okay, there _may_ be some lingering feelings he has to get out of his system. But it’s best that he figures it out alone.

No need to bother Eskild or anyone else with a thing that isn’t even a thing. Except in his own head.

 

***

 

Not much changes even though they live in the same building. Isak goes to his classes and works at the lab. He needs to cut down partying on Thursday nights, because he has to work on Fridays from 8 am to 4 pm. It’s weird. He doesn’t actually remember having classes on Fridays since his first year. Thursday has always been their party night. It’s easier to get into bars and beer is sometimes cheaper than on the weekends.  

It’s not like he misses a lot, though. It’s the same tired scene, week after week. After three years Isak’s seen it all.

One of his classes is Programming for science students. He knows it could be useful, but he just can’t make his brain to focus on it. It doesn’t help that the teacher is kind of sleazy, always stands a little too close when they’re doing coding exercises and Isak has to ask something.

He looks like the type of guy who gets off on sleeping with his students, regardless of their gender. It makes Isak shudder a little, and he tries to lie low, keep his questions to himself. He can always google if there’s shit he doesn’t understand.    

 

***

 

The thing about constant rain is that after a while it starts to feel like home, safe, even comfortable to be wet to the core. Surrounded and protected by a curtain of water from all sides. It blurs and paints everything in bluish grayscale. Buildings, mountains, the sea. The cemetery that’s practically outside Isak’s window. In that hazy, soaked world it’s quite easy to pretend you don’t notice certain people.

Once you go inside, where everything is bright and sharp and in full color, you can’t do that anymore.

It’s pouring, even harder than usually. Isak’s walking to the grocery store because he can’t be arsed to take his bike in this weather. He’s halfway down the hill leading to Minde when he notices a tall guy walking not that far behind.

It’s like his brain is wired to notice Even everywhere and at all times. He avoids looking back again, doesn’t want to alert Even to the fact that he’s seen him.

Isak wonders if he’s the only one who gets the urge to walk faster and faster in situations like these, if he’s the only one weird enough to rather flee than talk to people. He wonders if Even notices that he’s walking faster. If he even knows that it’s Isak ahead of him.  

Once they cross the main road, it gets obvious that they’re going to the same place. Isak tenses, manages to go through at least five different scenarios how they walk into the store at the same time.

Honestly, Isak just wants to stock up on beer and Grandiosa in peace. Preferably without seeing Even, hearing Even or thinking about Even. For fuck’s sake.

The blast of warm air at the entrance feels especially comforting today. Despite himself, despite his mind constantly reminding him not to look back, Isak turns a little once he’s inside.

He’s met with Even’s scrutinizing gaze.

“Hi,” Even says.

“Hi,” Isak says back. Or squeaks. Whatever.

“This weather sucks,” Even continues with a frown on his face, shaking his umbrella. Because apparently he’s optimistic enough to believe that he can manage with just an umbrella here.

“Like more than usual,” he adds when Isak doesn’t say anything.

“Right,” says Isak.

He tries to chuckle or something, to show Even that he’s _not_ affected by this. That he’s completely cool and collected. That he’s the master of small-talk. It’s just that his mouth feels kind of dry and refuses to make any more sounds.

So he takes a basket and walks briskly to the aisle furthest away from the entrance.   

He kind of has to forgo that part of the store where they keep Grandis, but at least he gets beer. And some bread.

 

***

 

Time passes, and in some ways it goes really fast. In others, not so much.

Then one day the halls of the building get blessedly empty. There is not a sound to be heard. Because every single person living in Løbergsveien Student Housing has gone away for Easter break. To Geilo or Hemsedal or wherever normal people with normal friends and normal families spend their Easters usually.

Isak enjoys the quiet. He keeps both the kitchen and his own room unlocked. Wanders around in the common areas he usually avoids at all cost.

He migrates to the common room furthest back in the house. There are sofas and a big television set with DVD player. A pool table in the corner. Someone has left a waffle maker on it, thankfully unplugged, but there’s crusty, dried batter on the green felt. The whole thing looks wholly unsanitary and makes Isak wince a little.

He takes his laptop and a messy pile of notes to the sofa. Makes himself home.

His lab gig ended a week ago. He sent his applications for four different Master’s programmes yesterday. Two here, one in Trondheim, one in Oslo. Now he has until the second week of May to complete a lab journal and a research poster for the lab project. Other than that he has three lectures a week. This spring is finally looking pretty chill.  

His lab journal is in pretty good shape, because he made himself write at least a little bit after every lab shift. It just needs some fine tuning at this point. The poster, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. He hasn’t even begun. But that’s why this Easter break is so perfect. Ten days without distractions.

He’s actually a little excited to put the research they’ve done into words. Of course, they’re nowhere near designing their own molecules that could be used disrupting protein-phosphoinositide interactions gone wrong. But that’s the long term goal. And it would be pretty cool if he could continue in the group next year. He knows the other programmes he applied for are amazing as well, but he likes Maite and he likes working for her.

Maite actually suggested that he apply for a summer job at the hospital laboratory, analyzing blood samples and stuff. Promised to put in a good word for him, too.

Isak hasn’t heard back from them yet, but he has his old job at a hardware store to fall back on.

He works for an hour. Gets some outlining done, tries to decide which graphs and charts to use in his poster. Then he turns the TV on and watches some mindless entertainment until he gets too hungry and has to get up and find something to eat.

 

***

 

Three days into his new routine Isak walks into the common room with a spring in his step. He woke up to a great idea for his poster, wrote some messy notes the first thing in the morning, pondered it some more in the shower after his morning push-ups and sit-ups, and now he’s more than ready to start working on it for real.

Except that there is a person in the common room.

And not just any person, but a tall, blond, Even-shaped person sitting on the couch and watching something that Isak recognizes instantly. Romeo + Juliet. Isak’s seen it once – five years and six months ago, to be accurate – and it was one time too many, thank you very much.

He’d back out but he made a noise coming in and Even is turning around already.

“Oh –,” Isak says like the stupid idiot he is.

“Halla,” says Even.

He always was the more composed one of them, Isak thinks and feels a pang of resentment. Like what right he has to be so composed after everything that has happened. After everything that has apparently not stopped haunting Isak even five years and six months later.

“Romeo and Juliet?” Isak asks, even though he knows it is. Fuck. How awkward is this going to get.

“Yeah,” Even nods, already scooting on the sofa, like he’s making space for Isak there. “Want to watch?”

“I… I don’t know. I never really liked it that much?” Isak hesitates and manages to make it sound like a question instead of a statement.

“God, I know!” Even sighs.

Wait, what?

Even pauses the movie, looking at Isak eagerly now. “I used to love it so much. Like it was my favorite movie when I was younger. Now I barely even remember why I liked it.”

“Okay?” Isak says, taking an involuntary step toward the sofa. Even pats the cushions next to him and Isak sits, feeling dazed and almost panicked. Like his legs and heart and brain are three completely different entities and none of them want the same thing.

“Do you want to watch something else?” Even asks after Isak has sat down. And he looks so fucking eager, so excited to talk to Isak that Isak’s heart and brain can’t take it. His legs are luckily indifferent now that he’s not standing on them anymore.

Isak remembers the laptop he still has in a death grip in his hands, but only when Even’s eyes wander up and down Isak’s body and stop there. Even looks back up and raises his eyebrow slightly. At least that expression is still familiar, something Isak remembers from the time before.  

“I was planning on studying here, actually,” he admits, feeling slightly sheepish all of a sudden. He’s never been embarrassed to admit that he likes to study, loves it even. But now, on this couch, a rare sunlight filtering through the ugliest, dirtiest curtains and Even observing him like he’s a rare species of mammal only seen in the deepest rain forests once in a decade, he feels like studying on Easter break is the stupidest thing he could admit to.

“Do you want me to leave?” Even asks, finally.

“No, no,” Isak is quick to protest. “You were here first, I couldn’t –”

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

Even unpauses the movie and shrugs.

“Do you have a deadline right after Easter Monday or something?” he asks, his voice low now.

“No, in a month,” says Isak. Because it’s the truth.

Even laughs.

They end up finishing the movie together. Even suggests starting over from the beginning for Isak’s sake, once it gets obvious that Isak’s going to stay. Isak says it’s unnecessary, he’s seen it before anyway.

They don’t talk, really, but it’s not awkward anymore.

Once the movie is over, Even stretches his long legs and turns to look at Isak.

“I have more movies in my room, if you want –?” he starts, and it’s obvious that he’s a little unsure if it’s even okay to suggest that.

Isak honestly doesn’t know what to say. The whole thing feels so precarious. So many ways how it can go wrong. So much they haven’t talked about. And Isak knows himself. If they go to Even’s room, they’re not going to talk now either. The pull is too much, he feels it every second he sits next to Even, feels the body heat only a few centimetres away. But before he can even begin to formulate an answer, Even’s speaking more.

“Or I could go and get a pile from my room and we can continue watching here if it’s better that way?”

He’s talking really fast now.

Isak’s stomach, that traitor, swoops and it’s beginning to feel like all the other body parts are in this together. Only Isak’s brain is stubborn and keeps protesting.

They agree that Even goes to get some movies and Isak tries to find some snacks for them.

Isak practically flies all through the house in his haste to get to the kitchen and ransack all the cupboards. He finds some chili peanuts on his own shelf, left by Abdi no doubt, because Isak can’t stand chili peanuts. He takes them anyway. He takes a couple of bananas, too. Banana is a snack, right? A healthy one, at that.

Looking inside the next cupboard he strikes gold. On Joakim’s shelf there are two bags of potato chips, one sour cream and onion and one salt and pepper. He checks the fridge, too, and sees some sour cream. The best before date is past, but it smells okay, so Isak mixes in some spices to make a half-decent dip. He figures no one is going to miss the sour cream or the few pinches of paprika and herb mix, but he definitely has to buy new potato chips for Joakim.   

But anyway, he’s got plenty of time to replace everything before people get back from the break.

Isak takes the snacks and a six pack of Hansa he bought a few days ago, thanking himself that he was smart enough to put it in the fridge right away, because now it’s deliciously cold. Once he gets back to the common room, Even is there already, sitting on the couch with his back towards the door. He’s tapping the coffee table in a quick, nervous rhythm, and Isak feels his insides squeeze looking at him. What the hell are they even doing?

 

***

 

They watch two more movies, both chosen by Even, who gets more relaxed eventually. His eyes sparkle as he explains something about the first movie, something the director had said in an award speech. It’s quite obviously a big-budget movie that has gotten a lot of praise among the critics. Isak doesn’t quite understand why any of it is so great, but he keeps nodding at Even anyway.

The second movie is different. It’s a documentary about an old man who lives on an island. His wife is sick, at the hospital, and probably won’t get better. The man lives alone for the first time in sixty years. He cooks food, feeds his cat, visits the wife at the hospital, but that part isn’t even shown in the film, only the part where he leaves the island. He speaks on the phone with his daughter and goes to bed, alone. Everything in his home looks like it was chosen by his wife.  

Nothing really happens, it’s just a man doing everyday things, and yet Isak can feel his throat constricting, his eyes brimming with tears. When the cat jumps on the bed in the movie, curls next to the man, he can actually feel a tear running down his cheek and tries to wipe it very discreetly.  

Maybe his mamma would like a cat? An indoor cat, so that it won’t go missing.

He can’t decide whether it would be a good or a bad thing. What would happen to the cat if mamma got worse?    

 

***

 

Isak wakes up in the middle of a night. He has a blanket he doesn’t recognize on top of him. Looking around he realises that he’s still in the common room, curled in a really weird position on the couch.

He gets up and goes back to his room. He takes the blanket with him.

 

***

 

The next day there’s a knock on Isak’s door. Isak hasn’t told Even where his room is, but he isn’t particularly surprised that Even knows.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Even says as soon as Isak opens the door. He’s wearing a blue anorak and black skinny jeans with a backpack and proper hiking shoes. Isak stares at him.

“Oh, c’mon, get some clothes on,” Even adds like that’s a normal thing to say someone you have just started rekindling your friendship with. Or whatever this is. They have never really been friends, to be honest.  

Isak looks down and realises that he’s still in his boxers and t-shirt. He’d taken the jeans and hoodie off as soon as he came to his room last night. Those are in a pile on the couch with the blanket that’s probably Even’s.

Even follows Isak’s eyes to the couch and says: “Oh, the blanket. We can take that too.” He steps inside Isak’s room and goes to get it, folding it a lot more nicely than Isak had, and puts it in the backpack.

Isak shakes his head and takes the first pair of sweats he can find. Taking a look out of the window he sees it’s uncharacteristically sunny for a second day in a row, but he decides to wear his goretex boots anyway. He has the urge to just wear the same t-shirt and hoodie as yesterday, but he can’t do that when Even’s staring at him expectantly. Even who actually saw him wearing those yesterday. And probably saw Isak falling asleep in them, too, now that he thinks about it.

Once Isak is done, Even just starts walking.

He’s really fast, too. Isak has to jog a few steps to keep up.

“I haven’t eaten anything today,” Isak says.

“I have food,” Even answers patting his backpack.

“Okay.”

They don’t go to the direction Isak expects them to. Instead of turning left Even takes the right turn. Instead of going downhill he keeps going up. They’re in the area Isak has never been in, despite living in the neighborhood for almost three years.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

Even doesn’t answer, just keeps walking. And Isak follows. Nothing has really changed, Isak thinks, almost disgusted with himself. He still follows wherever Even asks him to go.

They turn right again, then left, still going uphill, and then the road ends. Even seems to know the place, because he shoves some branches to the side and Isak sees a trail going up the steep hillside.

“We’re going up?” Isak asks, and can’t keep the skepticism out of his voice.

“You have never been to Løvstakken?” Even sounds surprised.

“Nope,” confirms Isak.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Three years next autumn,” Isak says, and then adds, remembering the applications he sent a few days ago: “If I’m still here next autumn.”

A few days that feels like a lifetime ago now that everything has somehow changed.

“Okay,” Even says. It doesn’t sound like he’s judging Isak, not like the every other person who finds out that Isak hasn’t been to any of the mountains surrounding Bergen. Except for Fløyen, but even there he hasn’t been since his first week here when the university gave out free tickets to the funicular.  

“When I moved here last fall,” Even begins, “I knew that bigger life changes can trigger an episode. Like, of course I knew.”

He lets out a laugh that’s almost bitter, and Isak thinks that there’s a story there. Wonders if it’s theirs.

Even doesn’t look at Isak as he speaks. He’s a few steps ahead and above, so all Isak sees is his complicated and expensive looking backpack.

“So I really should’ve seen it coming. But I had been stable for a while, had finally found that balance where my meds work and the side effects have gone from fucking awful to mildly irritating.”

Isak thinks he should say something, but all that comes out is heavy panting that sounds really bad to his own ears.

He isn’t used to climbing steep hills like this, and it feels like his lungs are going to explode any minute now. Sure, he rides the bike everywhere he can and does the bodyweight exercises he learned together with Eskild back when Eskild was trying to impress this guy who was really fit. But his body isn’t used to this.

“It took me a few days,” Even continues.

Apparently _he_ can climb and speak at the same time. It doesn’t even sound like he’s out of breath.

“I was pretty excited about the study programme. It was such a compromise to even decide to come here, so it felt good to be excited, you know.”

Isak doesn’t know. He doesn’t actually even know what Even studies or why he’s here, but it doesn’t feel like the right time to ask, so he lets Even speak.

“And then one day I woke up really, really early and went for a walk. I walked up to Fløyen and Rundemanen, but once I came back down it was like I hadn’t gotten enough yet, so I walked up to Ulriken as well. I felt like I could walk anywhere in the world. It was barely past midday and I was half-way up to Løvstakken when it finally hit me. I was hypomanic.”

Even has turned around and watches Isak carefully, like he’s waiting for a reaction.

Isak doesn’t really know what he should say. If there really is anything you can say in situations like this.

He ends up telling about his mamma. About the nights he spent being scared for her and scared for himself, about the nights when he fled and left her alone. About the shame, and confusion, and anger, and bitterness. About the diagnosis which – when it finally came – was as much of a relief as it was something else, something heavier. Because now they knew.

And now they knew it wasn’t going away.

“Yeah, you’ve told,” Even says.

“I have?” Isak doesn’t remember. He had barely admitted it to himself at that point.  

“Well, you said she was crazy,” Even shrugs.

Isak winces.

“I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have called her that,” is what he ends up saying. “I don’t… it’s not what I usually… I mean, I was so fucking worried you would think less of me because of my mamma. And you ended up actually thinking less of me because of me.”

“I never thought less of you, Isak.”

“You didn’t?”

“You said you’d be better off without mentally ill people in your life. And I understood you so well. Sometimes I think I’d be better off without me in my life.”

“Don’t say that.”

“But it’s true,” Even says. “It’s not like I think that all the time. But there are moments when I do.”

Now it’s Isak’s heart that’s exploding too, along with his lungs.

“I think you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met, Even,” he manages.  

There’s a silence. Then Even takes Isak’s hand and squeezes it.

“But you and your mamma?” he asks. “Are you two okay now?”

Isak smiles. “Yeah, we are.”

Isak lets go of Even’s hand a little reluctantly.

 

***

 

Once they get to the top, Even finds a rock that he deems suitable for sitting on and spreads the blanket on it.

At that point Isak has most definitely asked at least three times when they’re going to eat. He may have whined a little, too, although he’s not going to admit it.

Even gives him a water bottle first and takes out one for himself too.

Isak downs almost half of it in one go and hopes that Even didn’t lie about having food with him. He doesn’t feel hunger, doesn’t actually feel anything beyond pleasant exhaustion, but he thinks he might pass out if there won’t be food any time soon.

He looks at Even and thinks about everything they were and are. Are about to be, maybe. Because something definitely shifted between them on their way up.

“So, how would you feel about food?” Even teases with a glint in his eye and finds two identical, very obviously home-wrapped packages in his backpack.

Isak opens his right away and is met with the scent of sandwiches filled with ham, cheese and bell pepper.

“Thank you,” he says and takes a bite just as his stomach gives out a really loud noise.

“Okay, okay. Now I believe that you were hungry,” Even laughs and holds out a thermos. “Tea?”        

Isak’s not the biggest fan of tea, but sitting down after all that physical exertion he’s starting to feel cold and decides he could use something warm to drink. So he nods, and Even pours him a cup.

They eat in silence. Now that Isak’s gotten some food, he can finally focus on the view. Ulriken is right across from them, red and yellow cable cars crawling up the hill, bringing tourists to the top. Looking to his left Isak glimpses the city, tiny and far far away, and the bay where Hurtigruten is about to leave the dock. Sea glimmers and glistens in the sun, and everything feels so right at this moment.

“Okay, why Bergen?” Even asks after a while.

Isak laughs, because isn’t that the question.

“I could ask you the same,” is what he says.

“Mh-mm,” Even nods, his mouth filled with sandwich. He swallows. “But you first.”

“I applied to three universities after high school,” Isak tells. “Oslo, Bergen, NTNU. Got into all of them.”

Even raises his eyebrow, looking impressed. Isak preens a little.

“I’m impressive, I know,” he jokes. “I chose Bergen. It was a lot of things, I think. I looked at the research they do here and it seemed more interesting than in Oslo or Trondheim. And then… I dated someone during my third year, but it ended badly. Like, being cheated on with multiple people of multiple genders during russ celebrations badly.”

“Okay,” Even says. Waits.

“Then mamma –,” Isak hesitates. “She got hospitalized, and I didn’t even find out right away because I kept ignoring my phone and… I could’ve checked up on her a lot more often anyway. Maybe even tried to get her help myself. But I was so fucking selfish back then.”

“Isak –,” Even protests. “You can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves.”

Isak shrugs, like he doesn’t really believe Even, but drops it anyway.

“In any case, I felt like I had fucked up a lot and there wasn’t that many reasons for me to stay in Oslo. So I came to Bergen.”

They’re quiet for a while. Isak looks around and sees a group of people a little further away, inspecting something written on the wall of a little shack near the cell towers.

“I was at Westerdals,” Even says.

“That art school?”

“Yeah. I have a BA in Film and TV.”

“Okay,” Isak says.

“It was really fucking hard,” Even continues after a while. “Pretty competitive too. Deadline after deadline. And everyone kept saying that it just gets worse in the real world, once you have your degree. I got really obsessed with staying healthy and doing my best at all times. The more I exercised, the more I ate healthy foods and slept 9 hours per night, the less I felt okay.”  

A seagull screams. The group Isak saw earlier passes them, talking loudly in a language he doesn’t recognize. It’s difficult to say if they’re angry or excited.

“I felt completely out of control. I was seeing my therapist every week, but he didn’t notice anything because I wasn’t manic and I wasn’t depressed either. He kept praising me for doing so well. I have this mood journal where I have to write down how much I’ve slept, what meds I’ve taken, that sort of thing. It all looked pretty good on paper.”

Isak takes Even’s hand, plays with his fingers. They’re cold. He wonders if Even has gloves in his backpack.

“I saw that they have a Master’s programme in curating here and applied on a whim,” Even says. “I thought that if I can’t make art without losing my mind, I can at least make other people’s art more visible.”

“What’s curating?” Isak asks, because of course his brain manages to latch on the least relevant part. That’s why he shouldn’t talk to people. He always says the wrong thing.

Luckily, Even just laughs. A warm, hearty laugh that Isak can feel all the way down to his toes. He lets out a little embarrassed laugh of his own.

“Basically, it’s just organizing art exhibitions or maybe film festivals, that sort of thing. Selecting content that deserves to be seen and fits the theme,” Even says and pats Isak on the shoulder. “Should we get back down now?”  

 

***

 

Surprisingly enough going downhill isn’t much easier. They take a different route now, and it’s somehow even steeper than the one they took going up. It’s only been five minutes and Isak’s thighs burn as he tries not to walk too fast and end up rolling down the hill. Not that he’d roll very far because there are trees. He’d probably hit a tree and die.

Even keeps jumping from a rock to rock, even jogging a little, and Isak doesn’t get it.

Is he the only one afraid of falling?  

“I still want to make movies,” Even says at one point, waiting for Isak where the trail makes a sharp turn. Isak nods and asks if he still has some water left.

Even hands out a bottle.

“It just has to be on my own terms, I think,” he says. “Some people say they make better art when they’re manic, but that’s… I don’t think that’s true. That’s just romanticizing a serious illness. An illness that’s ruined so much for me.”

Isak wishes he knew what to say to that.

“I wish I knew what to say to that,” he says.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“I don’t know anything about art either,” Isak adds.

Even looks at him for a long time.    

 

***

 

They get back to Løbergsveien and Even suggests he’ll make them dinner in his room. Apparently he has his own kitchen and bathroom, unlike Isak.

“I just prefer not to deal with roommates who worry,” he says with a self-deprecating smile.

Isak wants to ask where Even lived the first six months in Bergen, and if he had roommates then. He doesn’t.

“I don’t think my roommates would even notice if something happened to me,” he says instead.

Even gives him his room number, and Isak goes to take a shower. He’s tired, but in a good way. He lets the warm water wash over him and soothe his muscles. His stomach is in knots when he thinks about this whole day. They still haven’t talked about what happened at Nissen, not really. It’s like they fell into this thing again, by accident, and they’re both so fucking scared to make it weird now.

But they need to talk at some point.

 

***

 

“Why aren’t you spending the break with Eskild?” Even asks as they’re eating very simple pasta that still somehow tastes like the best thing Isak has ever eaten.  
  
“Eskild? Why?” Isak wonders.   
  
“Isn’t he your boyfriend?”   
  
Isak swallows, feels the butterflies in his stomach die in an instant, actually only notices they’ve been there for the past two days now that they’re gone. Has he really read the situation so wrong? Here he thought they were on their way to... something, at least. That this was kind of a date maybe. And all this time Even has believed that he has a boyfriend?   
  
“No,” Isak says. It comes out flat, he can’t really hide the sudden change in his mood. “Not a boyfriend.”   
  
Even stares at him. His eyes are so blue, so intense, so unreadable, that Isak has to look away.   
  
“Okay,” Even says, at last. “I just thought, when I saw you two before Christmas, you looked very together to me.” He keeps chewing his pasta, like nothing has changed in the past two minutes.   
  
Isak would probably laugh at the thought of him and Eskild together if he wasn’t at the brink of tears. He looks at his plate, at the half-eaten pasta he has zero interest in now. In fact, the half he already ate is doing a very good job trying to crawl up and out of his stomach.   
  
He fakes a yawn, doesn’t look Even in the eye as he says “I think I’m going to go to bed. Too much mountain air, or something”.   
  
He’s well aware that Løvstakken is actually only 479 metres above sea level. He even saw a sign up there that said as much. Not much mountain air to talk about.   

Even doesn’t correct him, though.  
  
“Okay,” is all he says.

  
Isak doesn’t even look at him. He walks out of the room, down the stairs and to his own room, own bed. He doesn’t bother taking the clothes off, just gets under the duvet and stares at the ceiling.  
  
He takes his phone and texts to Jonas: _everything is shit._  
  
Then he sleeps.

 

***

 

Isak wakes up to six new messages.

There’s one from pappa. He’s coming to Bergen next week for work and asks if Isak has time for lunch. The others are from Jonas.

_What’s shit now?_

_Isak?_

_Can I call you?_

_Okay, okay. I guess you’re not reading your messages right now._

_Eva wants to know if you have something for Noora’s birthday, btw._

Isak stares at the time stamps. He must’ve fallen asleep before 8 pm and slept more than twelve hours, because Jonas has sent the first one at 20:02. He sighs, doesn’t know how to reply now that he isn’t feeling as raw as yesterday. Explaining the situation with Even feels too complicated, and also a little pathetic.

Stupid, pathetic Isak got ahead of himself. Again.

He doesn’t dare to leave Jonas on read, though, because Jonas tends to worry. So he focuses on the last message, writes back _oh shit, I totally don’t, thx for reminding!_

Then he informs pappa that he’s free next Thursday after his Toxicology lecture. Pappa replies right away that he can’t wait to see Isak.

 

***

 

Since Isak really, really doesn’t feel like running into Even, working in the common room is out of the question now. Instead, he takes his laptop to the kitchen and tries to decipher the notes he made the other day – before he got distracted – but his handwriting is shit and most of it doesn’t even look like a language he’s ever seen in his life.

He reads through everything he’s written on the poster draft already, even re-reads the lab journal for the tenth time, probably, and edits a little while he’s at it. But still, he has no idea what his fantastic idea was.

If it really was that fantastic, he’s going to remember it again, he thinks.

He’s been staring out of the window for god knows how long when his phone pings with a new message. It’s enough to make his heart pound a little harder, which is stupid. He doesn’t even know if Even still has his number. The message is from Jonas, though, just a simple thumbs up. Luckily, he doesn’t ask anything about Isak’s text from the previous night.

Jonas has always been very good at knowing when not to push Isak.   

As much as Isak tries to focus on the poster, his thoughts keep going back to Even. He feels a little foolish now, ashamed of his reaction, because Even couldn’t possibly know what had been going in his head. Walking out of his room like that was kind of rude.

For a moment he thinks about that time Even walked out on _him_ , but realises right away how petty that is, how _not like that_ their current situation is. Even was manic then, and deep down Isak had known something was wrong the whole time they were at the hotel. He just didn’t have words for it before he spoke to Sonja later that same night.

And back then, he wasn’t even sure if the words he’d been given were the right ones. Now he knows they were. And there’s a special kind of guilt in realising that what you consider maybe the best sex of your life, most likely wasn’t that good of an experience for the another person. Isak adds it to his long list of guilt feelings he’s accustomed to keeping in the back of his head.

What Even said yesterday – that his illness had ruined a lot for him – broke Isak’s heart a little. And for that reason alone Isak really should talk to him, apologize to him, be his friend.

Even if that’s all he ever gets to be.     


	3. My hands wanted to touch your hands because we had hands

Despite the best of his intentions, Isak neither gets his poster done nor talks to Even again in the coming days. It’s amazing, really, how they manage to avoid each other when they’re most likely the only two people in the building.   

Isak distracts himself with Netflix, can’t make himself to just go and knock on Even’s door. He ends up watching a documentary about quantum mechanics and consciousness. The documentary claims that water has consciousness and memory, that consciousness has nothing to do with our brains. That maybe it’s located in the water of our cells. The whole thing is kind of confusing, and also scientifically not that well argumented, if Isak is completely honest.

Still, he can’t get the idea out of his head. He’s a molecular biologist, or at least that’s what he’s trying to become, so he’s at the same time very fascinated and very critical. Watching the documentary his immediate thought was that cells are mostly water. Not just human or animal cells, but plants and fungi, too. Do plants and mushrooms have consciousness?

What about the rain water in Bergen?   

He reads up on the thing some more, finds an article about a Japanese scientist who has passed away. The scientist believed that our consciousness could impact water on a molecular level. That the molecules somehow turn more _beautiful_ , when they experience loving thoughts. There is also a man who thinks that trees have feelings and communicate with each other.  

Okay, mostly it’s a whole load of bullshit.

Also, not a thing anyone would fund if he decided to research it. But he likes the thought, the idea that his consciousness isn’t one but many, that maybe all his cells experience the world in completely different ways. It would explain so much.

Like why his heart and brain insist on wanting two completely different things. Why his legs sometimes walk before he has decided to, why his hands sometimes do things he hasn’t even thought about yet.

Why he’s such a mess of conflicting emotions, thoughts and desires.    

 

***

 

Pappa is waiting for him in front of the Sailor’s Monument. Isak waves and finds the closest bike rack to lock his bike to. He’s a little late because the Toxicology lecturer wanted to talk to him after the class, but pappa seems to be in a good mood and doesn’t mention the wait.

“When will you have to be back at the uni?” pappa asks after he and Isak have performed a weird not-quite handshake thing that is ridiculously formal for a father and a son.

At least they’re both trying.

“Ummm, I was gonna go to the library to study, so I don’t have a set time or anything,” Isak says.

“Okay, then we have some time. I have a meeting in two hours.”

Isak nods. “Do you know a place you want to go to, or should I suggest something?”

“I think –,” pappa starts, “I had lunch at Egon yesterday, you know, with some co-workers. The food was really good, so. Maybe we could go there?”

Isak agrees, so they go to Egon. Because that’s who pappa is as a person. Instead of trying something new he prefers a chain restaurant he’s visited countless times back home. Between new and familiar he’s always going to choose the one that’s familiar, even two days in a row.

Not that Isak can blame him. If there was a Bergen branch of Bislett Kebab House, he would most likely be a regular there.

It’s no wonder that mamma and pappa’s marriage didn’t work. With all the unfamiliar and new that came between them. It’s no wonder that pappa chose to leave. Isak just wishes that mamma had a say too. She didn’t choose the unfamiliar, either.

She didn’t choose to be left alone with it.

At the restaurant Isak orders a pulled beef sandwich and pappa orders grilled chicken. Isak would bet that pappa ate the same thing yesterday. They eat mostly in silence, and Isak waits. Because he knows the questions will come.

He’s eaten two-thirds of his sandwich when they do. Pappa wants to know about his studies, if he has a summer job already, if he has thought about looking for one in Oslo. _You’d be closer to your family,_ pappa says.   

He seems surprised when Isak mentions applying for Master’s Programmes, and Isak’s initial reaction is to frown in confusion, or maybe in disappointment. He’s pretty sure that he’s talked about his plan extensively and to anyone who has been willing to listen. Pappa included.

In fact, that’s probably the only thing he talks about with pappa, because they don’t really know how to speak to each other about other things.   

“I just forgot it’s been so many years,” pappa explains when he notices Isak’s furrowed brow. “You’re getting your first degree already.”

Then he moves seamlessly to other topics: “You want dessert?”

“No thanks,” Isak says, yawning. “I’m going to fall asleep at the library if I eat more.”

They pass the Fish Market on their way back to the rack where Isak left his bike. Pappa looks wistfully at all the seafood.

“Too bad I can’t take any of that back to Oslo with me,” he sighs.

“I’m sure you could,” Isak says, looking at pappa. “If you buy a cooler bag or something, and ask them pack some extra i–”

“Oops,” says a very familiar, deep voice as Isak collides with something solid and warm. He feels a pair of hands settle on his arms in an attempt to keep him steady.

“Hi,” Isak says and takes a small step back. “Or… I’m sorry, is what I meant.”      

Even laughs, but it’s short.

“Maybe you should watch where you go, Isak,” he says raising his eyebrows a little, removes his hands from Isak’s arms, and walks away.

Isak’s not sure, but he thinks that this was maybe, possibly the first time he heard Even say his name in more than five years.

He has no idea what to make of Even’s tone, can’t tell if Even is angry with him or annoyed at him or just indifferent. But just the sound of his name in Even’s mouth is enough to send shivers down his spine, to wake a longing he’s tried very hard to keep at bay for weeks, maybe even months now.

He can’t even imagine how he would’ve felt had he heard it spoken softly, with warmth.   

“A friend?” pappa asks.

Isak shakes himself out of his stupor.

“No, no. Just someone who lives in the same house,” he says.

 

***       

 

The more Isak thinks about it, the more convinced he is that he can’t continue like this. He hasn’t read a single word since he came to the library – the public one, because there’s less of a change of getting distracted by people you know from uni. But apparently he’s very good at doing the distracting himself. Instead of focusing on his textbook he’s been looking at the people who come and go through the doors of the shopping center right behind the library.

It’s a sea of different raincoats, people pushing strollers, people lugging their bags, people running to catch a train or a bus. All distorted by the rain lashing sideways onto the reading room windows.

There is this tall guy in a blue anorak passing the windows only a few metres away. For a moment Isak thinks it’s Even, but the gait is all wrong, not Even-like at all. Shoulders too sloping.

Even or not, Isak can’t go on like this. He sighs and packs his books back in the backpack, all notions of getting some reading done gone down the drain now.

 

***

 

Isak goes and knocks on Even’s door.

Anxiety sits on his chest, a weight that reminds him of that time on third grade when they had a snow fight and Mikkel had sat on him and put snow under his collar, refusing to let go until Isak was near tears. Until Jonas had come and told Mikkel to leave Isak alone.

His thighs shook when he took the stairs to the second floor, and his hands shake now, but he knocks.

There’s faint music coming from inside. Then the sound of footsteps. For a split second Isak panics, goes through an escape plan in his head, calculates metres to the stairwell and seconds it would take him to get there.

Then the door opens.

Even looks at him, his face blank. Doesn’t say anything. It’s still fucking impossible to tell what he thinks or feels.  

Isak takes a deep breath, tries to remember what he came here to say.

“I’m sorry,” is what comes out.

“About what?” Even asks.

“For telling you not to text me.”

Even looks confused for a second. “When did you–,” he starts, but then his posture changes ever so slightly, shoulders relaxing a little.

“Do you want tea?” he asks instead.

Isak nods. He still doesn’t like tea but he’s not going to say no now. He’s probably never going to say no to Even.  

Even steps to the side, motioning with his hand for Isak to come in. Isak’s legs take him miraculously over the threshold, although it feels like he’s lost all strength in them on his way here.  

“I thought you were apologizing for walking into me today,” Even says as he fills the kettle, his back towards Isak.

“No, not that,” Isak says, feeling embarrassed and still a little on the edge. It doesn’t help that he can’t see Even’s face. “Or yes, I’m sorry about that too. I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

Even turns around and leans into the counter, looks at Isak. “Me too.”

Isak looks down at his feet.

“Should we–,” he tries, coughs. “Should we maybe talk about those things?”

Even is quiet for a moment. He’s still leaning on the counter, tall and beautiful and everything Isak has ever wanted. The sound of boiling water builds up, then ends abruptly. A small click from the kettle tells them that it’s done.

Even turns around again, looks for something in the cupboards.

“Do you prefer green or black?” he asks.

“Either is fine,” Isak says.  

Even comes to the table with mugs and tea bags and looks at Isak expectantly.

Isak realises that he’s still standing by the coat rack, hasn’t moved an inch since Even shut the door behind him. He wills his legs to move, takes a few shaky steps and sits down at the chair Even points him to.

He dips the tea bag in the mug absentmindedly, looks at the colour that spreads in small puffs, the liquid getting gradually more green-brownish and looking, honestly, very unappealing. He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but Even laughs at him.

“You really don’t like tea, do you?” Even grins.

Isak grins back, but it doesn’t last. He feels cold all over when he understands that he has to say it now, or he’s never going to say it.

“No,” he says, and it comes out as a whisper. He swallows. “But I like you.”

“Isak–,” Even sounds strangled. Broken. He’s standing up, the sound of the chair scraping on the floor startlingly loud.

It takes less than a second and then he’s standing there, in front of Isak, taking Isak’s hand and pulling him up.

“Isak,” Even says again, soft.

It goes straight to Isak’s toes, the sound of it.

“I’m sorry,” Isak says, again.

“I know,” Even whispers.

Then he wraps his arms around Isak, pulls him in. Isak goes willingly. He presses his nose to the nook between Even’s neck and collarbone. Inhales the scent.

It’s so familiar, even after all this time. It floods his mind with images of sunlight filtered through an orange blanket. Of taupe and blue-gray sheets. The ones Eskild had given him, because he didn’t have any himself.

Images of Even in his bed, in his clothes.

He looks up and sees that Even is looking at him, lips slightly parted.

“I still have your phone number,” Even says, and his is voice rough.

Isak kisses him.

   

***

 

Even’s bed is just as narrow as Isak’s own is. There isn’t much room for what they’re doing, but it’s okay. Everything is kind of really okay right now.

The weight of Even on top of him grounds Isak, keeps him from vibrating out of his body. He can’t stop shaking and he doesn’t know if it’s because he wants so much or because he’s afraid of losing so much. Even’s hands travel down, stroking Isak’s arms soothingly on the way. They reach Isak’s hands, palms sliding against palms, fingers finding their way between fingers. The moment they slot into place Isak tightens his grip. He’s never going to let go.

Not anymore.

Even looks down at their hands, then back to Isak. His smile is small, almost shy, but enough for Isak to see, to notice.

“Hey,” Even says, and the smile widens.

Isak smiles back.

“You’re here,” Even says, his voice full of wonder.

“I am here,” Isak concedes.  

Even tries to loosen his hold of Isak’s other hand. Isak grasps harder on instinct, doesn’t want Even’s hand to go anywhere.

“Isak,” Even says, almost choking on emotion. “Isak, let me–”

So, Isak lets go. But not for long, he thinks. Promises himself.

Even raises his hand to caress Isak’s cheek, to run his thumb over Isak’s eyebrows, down to his nose. Follows the line of his upper lip slowly, carefully. The whine that leaves Isak’s throat at that surprises him, the sound too loud in the quiet room. He feels the warmth spread on his face and looks down for a moment.

He’s never felt like this.

He’s never wanted anything as much as he wants this.

Even doesn’t force him to look back up. Instead he runs his thumb over Isak’s heated cheeks, lowers himself completely on top of him, chest to chest, and presses a small kiss on Isak’s forehead.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“Everything,” says Isak.

 

***

 

They don’t have sex that night. But they talk. The rumbling of Isak’s stomach draws them out of the quiet slumber they have fallen into. Even heats a frozen pizza and gets them two bottles of mineral water from the fridge. They eat quietly, facing each other where they sit on Even’s bed.

The rain has ceased and given way to the evening sun, but it’s already sinking behind Løvstakken. For a short moment the view from Even’s window his breathtaking, the mountainside on the opposite side of town painted in warm, golden tones.

And yet, the dark clouds hang right above, ready to burst any minute. They always do.    

“I do miss the highs sometimes,” Even says.

Isak looks at him. How small, how vulnerable he really looks.

“How does it feel?” he asks.

“I don’t know if I can explain it,” Even shrugs. He looks out of the window. “Imagine the best feeling in the world.”

It was just now, Isak thinks, but doesn’t say. Just now, my body covered by your body.

“Sometimes it’s like that,” Even says. “Sometimes it’s even better.”

“Okay,” Isak says.

He takes Even’s hand, the one not holding a pizza slice, and squeezes. Even looks down where Isak’s hand is holding his and swallows.

“Isak, I’m never going to get better,” he says. His voice cracks.

“I know,” Isak says.

Even looks at him, really looks. “Do you?” he asks.

He looks almost wild, frantic. Scared. But also resigned, like he has already decided how this is going to go.

Isak is not going to let Even disappear. Not this time.

“I do,” he says. He takes Even’s other hand, too.

Even is still looking at their joined hands.

“Even, look at me,” Isak says.

Even looks.

“Even, I know what I’m getting into,” Isak says. He thinks about all the research, all the thinking, all the sleepless nights over the years. How it has never really left the back of his mind, how _Even_ has never left the back of his mind.

How he has never regretted anything more than letting Even go.  

“I know,” he insists. “ _I know._ I like you. I want you.”

It’s quiet.

“I want this,” Isak adds.

“Okay,” Even says quietly.

Then he laughs, a little. It’s watery and almost turns into a sob. He wipes his nose on the back of his hand, then wipes the hand on his duvet. Then he looks at the duvet, disgusted.

“Okay,” Isak says, “I still want you, even though you did _that_.”

That makes Even laugh even more, and Isak can’t help but laugh, too, because they’re ridiculous and they haven’t said much, but it still feels like they’re going somewhere.

Only this time Isak really needs to make sure that they’re on the same page. So he takes a deep breath and squeezes Even’s hand, again.

“I think–,” he says in a low voice, “I kind of really need to know what _you_ want.”

“Everything,” says Even.

 

***

 

Isak wakes up in Even’s narrow bed, and it’s friday and he doesn’t need to go anywhere because he doesn’t work at the lab anymore. He’s squeezed between Even and the wall, Even half on top of him.

He looks peaceful, dark blond hair matted against the forehead, mouth slightly open. Isak removes his hand carefully from where it’s trapped between their bodies and runs it softly over freckles and birthmarks littering Even’s jawline. Even stirs, moves a little, but doesn’t open his eyes.

“You’re here,” he says, sounding just as awed as the previous night.     

“Mh-mmm,” Isak says, smiling.

“Thank you.”

Isak’s phone pings somewhere on the floor where he had discarded his jeans before they went to sleep. Even opens his eyes and looks at him.

“Do you want me to give that to you?” he asks.

“You don’t have to,” Isak says, his growing smile disrupted with a yawn.

“But I’m going to,” Even decides. “It could be important.”

Isak thinks back on what he told Even on Løvstakken. About ignoring his phone and missing the news about his mamma. He wonders if Even remembers that. The thought makes him feel warm all over.

The message is from Oda, though. _Going to Legal tonight,_ she writes. _Sunniva plays records. You want to come?_

Sunniva is the latest in a long line of crushes Oda has had over the years. She’s very butch, majors in Gender Studies, and started her DJ career as a volunteer at Kvarteret. Now she’s getting paid gigs, too. At least sometimes. She’s kind of too much, in Isak’s opinion. But if Oda likes her, he’s willing to try and get to know her.

“Even?” he asks with some trepidation. “How do you feel about going out with my friends tonight?”

Is it too soon?

Is it weird that he asked?

Even, apparently, doesn’t think it’s weird. He smiles like a sun. “I’d like that,” he says and pushes some curls away from Isak’s forehead.

Isak texts back that he’ll come. _Yay,_ Oda answers. _Pregame at Abdi’s!_

 

***

 

Isak and Even miss the pregame. They’re too wrapped up in each other, finally talking about everything important and not important. Isak tells about his friends, about Oda’s crush, about the things Even can expect tonight when he meets them. Even talks about his studies and about an idea he got recently for a short film. He has reconnected with an old friend and thinks that the friend could help with filming.

They nap too, and Isak wakes up to Even making scrambled eggs that end up being both a very late lunch and an early dinner. While Isak looks at Even’s back, the muscles moving under his t-shirt, he thinks back to another time when Even made him eggs.

It’s weird that now they’re here, after all this time.

Isak remembers with a jolt how humiliating it was that he had told his mamma about dating Even, and then Even had just disappeared right after that. He had kind of hoped that mamma had forgotten about the text. But no, of course she remembered, and of course she had asked about it some weeks later.

He wonders if he’s going to tell mamma about Even now. If he’s going to tell her that the Even then and the Even now are the same Even.

Is he ever going to say that it was just a misunderstanding and they finally figured out? Will they actually figure it out?

He still isn’t completely sure everything is going to be fine.

Wonders if he ever will be.  

 

***

 

When they finally manage to leave the bubble they’ve created for themselves in Even’s room, it’s already half past nine in the evening. Legal is packed once they get there. Isak buys them both beer and they climb to the first floor.

Isak spots Sunniva in the corner beside the stairs, browsing a box of records.

“Hi,” Isak says and waves his hand a little in front of her face to get her attention.

She looks up from the records and beams back.

“Have you seen Oda?” asks Isak.

Sunniva points to the table near the window and Isak nods his thanks, gives her a thumbs up.

Legal is a tiny, cozy bar. It has the advantage of being just opposite to both Fincken and Garage, so most times Isak’s been here he’s continued to the other side of the street sooner or later. The blood-red vinyl chairs, wooden tables and orange-tinted lamps sort of create an atmosphere of a 1960s living room. The kind of living room he has seen in pappa’s baby photos.

As they near the table, Isak takes Even’s hand and squeezes it. He doesn’t know if it is for Even or his own benefit. He isn’t exactly known for introducing guys to his friends.

Even squeezes back and gives a small smile.

“Iiii-sak, you came!” Oda yells when she catches the sight of Isak. She kind of pounces on him and hugs him tightly.

Alright then, Isak thinks. He wonders how early she has started drinking.

Marte gets up too, hugging Isak almost as tightly. Abdi, Mathias, Ulrik and Thea – one of Oda’s friends – all nod their hellos. Isak can tell the moment when Mathias’ eyes fixate on something behind Isak.   

“Ummm,” Isak starts. “This is Even.”

Even waves to everyone, says hi.

Oda stares at Isak. Then at Even. Then she looks back at Isak, a contemplative look on her face.

“ _That_ Even?” she mouths.

Isak gives a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. To be honest he’s kind of surprised Oda even remembers that _that_ Even exists. Isak has told about him only once, during their first year in Bergen. They had both been absolutely sloshed.

Oda gets up again, looks somehow a lot steadier now, and shakes Even’s hand.

“Hi Even,” she says, smiling a little too wide. “I’m so happy to finally meet you. I think I may be too drunk to make a good impression. Sorry!”

Isak narrows his eyes at her, but she keeps grinning. Even, that wonderful, wonderful soul, just laughs.

“Nice to meet you too,” he says. “I’m not sure, but I think you may be Oda?”

“Right,” Isak coughs and can feel that his cheeks are getting red even though he hasn’t taken a single sip of his beer yet. “That _is_ Oda.”

Once Isak has introduced everyone to Even and they have settled down in the corner, the discussion at the table moves onto other topics. The music Sunniva plays is nice, more suitable for background music than dancing.

Although that doesn’t stop Oda and Thea who are dancing between the tables, Oda casting longing glances at Sunniva every now and then.

Isak feels Even’s foot tapping to the rhythm where their legs are flush together under the table. He can’t follow the conversation Abdi and Ulrik are having to his left, and whatever is left of his ability to focus flies out of the window the moment he feels a hand on his thigh. It rubs gently, at first right above his knee, and then moves very slowly up and up, making him hold his breath.

A pinch right below his groin makes him startle. He looks up and sees that Even is looking back with a smile that’s almost saucy.

“Hi,” Even whispers, bending down a little so that their faces are only centimetres away from each other.

“Well, hi to you too,” says Isak.

“Would you be okay with me kissing you in front of your friends?” Even asks, and now his expression is completely serious.

“Because I really want to,” he adds, his voice cracking a little, when Isak doesn’t say anything right away.

Isak bites his lip and swallows. “Okay,” he tries to say, but all that comes out is a tiny sound somewhere between a whisper and a sigh.

So he nods once. Then a second time, to make sure that Even understands.  

A smile spreads back on Even’s face and he brings his hands up to the sides of Isak’s neck, thumbs drawing small, comforting circles there. The first touch of his lips is soft and feather-light, barely there. It’s Isak who surges forward, slots their lips together properly, and wraps his arms around Even’s waist to keep him there, close to him.

The feeling of Even’s tongue against his own, against the roof of his mouth makes him long for something else in his mouth. The thought makes him shudder a little, and he keeps pulling Even closer. His leg moves atop Even’s thigh almost of its own accord, and for a split second he has the ridiculous thought that his consciousness maybe is in his blood.

Because right now all the blood in his body is moving at a rapid pace away from his brain and it feels like there’s room for only one thing in him.

Someone clears their throat next to Isak and he feels a hand tapping on his shoulder, forcing him to detach himself from Even.  

“We were thinking about going to Garage,” Abdi says. In the dim light of the bar it’s difficult to tell the expression on his face. “Are you coming with?”

“What about Oda?” Isak asks, tries to ignore how hot his face feels all of a sudden.

Abdi casts a glance at the corner where Oda is leaning on the wall and twirling her hair absentmindedly, gaze focused on Sunniva spinning the records.

“I’m pretty sure she’s staying,” Abdi says dryly.

Isak turns to look at Even. His pupils are dilated, eyes way darker than they were just moments ago. Isak tries to ask his question without words, but Even just stares.

“What?” he asks.

Isak leans closer. “We’re going home now, right?” he says in a low voice, looks at Even in a way he hopes is meaningful. Even swallows.

“Right,” he says, and his voice is really rough.

Isak stands up, holding out his hand to Even so that he can pull him up, too.

“I think we’re going home,” he says, trying to look apologetic. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t succeed.

Abdi shrugs. “Alright. Just thought it’d be polite to ask.”

 

***

 

The rush, the almost too overwhelming desire from moments ago subsides a little as they walk home in light rain. Isak feels his heart calm down a tiny bit.

“Are you okay?” Even asks when they pass the tram stop in front of the High Technology Centre.

Isak is thankful for the question. For the distraction. Too many thoughts swirl around in his head and the quiet doesn’t help.

“Yeah,” he says. “You?”

Even beams.

“I am,” he says and his eyes turn into small slits when he’s smiling this wide.

Isak adores it.  

He takes Even’s hand.

 

***

 

Wordlessly they go up to Even’s room. It’s almost like it’s their place now. And in a way it is. Isak has lived here too long, his room holds too many memories. But this tiny room with a tiny bed and windows towards Ulriken feels like a place where they can start again. Where they can build something new.

Isak closes the door behind them and pulls Even further into the room, squeezes his hand one more time.

For a moment they just look at each other. Then, without losing eye contact, Isak starts to take his clothes off.

When he’s down to his boxer briefs and socks, and Even is still just standing there, staring, Isak has to stop. It’s getting too embarrassing. He didn’t mean to make this into a show. It was just supposed to be a sign for Even to take his clothes off, too.

He glances down a bit, tries not to show his nerves. After a few breaths he feels composed enough to look at Even again, to raise his eyebrow in question.

“Are you just going to stand there?” he asks and is stunned by how hoarse his voice has gotten.

That gets Even moving. He stumbles a little in his haste to get rid of his clothes, and Isak takes a step closer to steady him. He lets his hands run over Even’s bare torso and down to the waistband of his jeans, halfway unbuttoned already.

He has to close his eyes for a moment, take some deep breaths. Even’s skin is warm under his hands and he can feel tiny tremors everywhere he touches. He’s probably trembling just as much himself.

At least Isak’s heart is beating fast and hard, his pulse throbbing absolutely everywhere in his body.  

He never knows how to not be awkward at this part. So he hides his face in Even’s neck and says, as calmly as he can, “I want to blow you”.

It still comes out sounding more of a nervous croak.

He feels the jolt that his words send through Even, and then there is a hot breath against his ear, against the hair just above.

“Kiss me first,” Even says, almost pleads.

So Isak does.

He doesn’t make it long, though. Too impatient now to get to the next part. Even lets out a whimper when Isak moves to mouth his jaw.

His neck, his chest, the light dusting of hair right below his belly button.  

Isak wants to peel down Even’s jeans but gets distracted. He gets on his knees and presses his face against the front of Even’s boxers. Just inhales.

He is, again, taken aback by how familiar the scent is. He kind of wants to wrap himself in it and stay surrounded by that scent for the rest of his life.   

“Fuck, _Isak_ –” Even says, but seems to lose the track of his thought when Isak mouths him right where the fabric has gotten wet from precome.

“Do you have condoms?” Isak mumbles against Even’s groin and nuzzles it a little.  

“Gh–hmm?” is all that comes out of Even’s mouth.

It makes Isak laugh a little. It’s comforting to know that he can affect Even like that. That he isn’t the only one almost delirious with want.

He looks up and locks eyes with Even. Even who looks completely wrecked already.

His Even.

“I asked if you have condoms,” Isak repeats, raising his eyebrow.

“Oh,” Even says and waves with a hand to somewhere his right. “There,”

Isak snorts. “I think I’m going to need you to use your words, actually.”

It makes Even laugh, too, and breaks some of the tension that has been building up and up and up ever since they got into Even’s room.

“The desk,” Even says after exhaling and inhaling a few times. “In the drawer. Second one.”

“Okay”, says Isak.

He finds the condoms and turns back to look at Even. Even who stands exactly where he left him, jeans pooled around his ankles, thighs trembling visibly, and almost a lost look on his face now that Isak isn’t there for him to touch and hold.

“Do you want to get on the bed?” Isak asks.

Even sighs and clambers on the bed, settling down on his back.

“Yes,” he says then, a little belatedly.

It makes Isak’s chest tight with laughter – or maybe something else – threatening to bubble up.

He climbs on top of Even and cradles his face in his hands.

“You’re so lovely,” he whispers.

The way Even looks up at him is so trusting, so open that it scares Isak. He has to close his eyes, breathe in and out and push the fear so far back he can.

He’s pretty sure he has broken this boy once, and he never wants to do it again.

“Okay,” he says, mostly to himself, to calm the nerves that are flaring up again. “Okay. Going to blow you now.”

“Okay,” says Even.

And it’s almost like he’s sensing that Isak is freaking the fuck out now, because with a small crooked smile and a wave of his hand he adds “be my guest”.  

And then:

“Any minute now would be fine.”

Isak lets out a laugh and peels off Even’s boxers as fast as he can with his shaking hands.

“Hey,” Even says, petting the side of Isak’s head to get his attention. “Did you change your mind about this?”

“Fuck, no–,” Isak replies, and it comes out so quick it’s almost ridiculous. “Even, no. I’m just… It’s been a long time since I did this with someone I actually care about.”

Something almost sad passes Even’s face but it’s gone before Isak can even begin to analyze it.

“I’m ruining the mood,” Isak says.

“Nope,” Even says, raising his hips a little to rub his very hard dick against Isak’s cheek. “But right now you’re not exactly elevating it either.”

Isak gives him a shaky grin and bends down to find a condom from the package he’d left on the floor next to the bed.

He takes Even’s dick in his hand and strokes up and down a few times, runs his thumb over the slit in the way Even used to love. The sounds that come out of Even’s mouth at that are a pretty good sign that he still does.

It makes Isak beam with unexpected pride. With warmth and happiness. Because this is Even.

He gets to do this with Even again.   

Sighing, Isak pulls the foreskin back and rolls the condom on Even. He takes the tip in his mouth, flattens his tongue against the underside and breathes through his nose, trying to get used to the taste and smell of latex overpowering Even’s natural scent.

He looks up and sees Even’s eyes, almost completely black now, focused on him.

“I can’t wait to do this without a condom,” Isak murmurs, without thinking, pressing a few kisses on the soft skin on Even’s inner thigh.

He tenses when he realises what came out of his mouth. “I mean, if that’s something you want, at some point.”

“Isak, please–,” Even whines, raising his hips again to get back into Isak’s mouth. It’s like he hasn’t even heard what Isak said.

Having a dick in his mouth is one of Isak’s favourite things in the world, has been ever since he’d tried it the first time.

It also was the thing he was most scared of, back when he was still in the closet. He wanted it so much, dreamed of it, and in his head it was the worst thing he could ever want. The thing that made him wrong in all the ways.

Now he loves it.

He loves the weight and the warmth on his tongue, loves the feeling of having his mouth full. He loves Even’s legs closing in around his head and keeping him in place. He loves the scent, the small aborted moves Even makes when he’s trying not to thrust too far into Isak’s throat. Even though it’s really obvious that he wants to.

He loves the sounds Even makes. And he knows he would love the taste if it wasn’t 100% latex. He loves feeling both helpless and really powerful at the same time.

He tries every trick he’s learned over the years, does the thing with his tongue that used to drive Even crazy, strokes his balls and continues further down, letting his finger caress the perineum, circle around Even’s hole.

Even’s completely lost to it. The way he lies there and just takes what Isak gives, eyes closed, back arched, biting his lip so hard it looks like it’s going to bleed, is enough to make Isak hump against the bed, to get some friction himself.

He hollows his cheeks and bobs his head up and down faster, kind of hopes that Even loses control and starts to fuck his face.

He uses one of his hands to stroke Even’s shaft where his mouth doesn’t reach. The other one sneaks back behind Even’s balls and rubs the hole until it yields and the tip of his finger slips in. It’s dry and he doesn’t even try to push it further.

He doesn’t have to, either, because that’s when Even comes, back arched and Isak’s name on his lips.

Isak sucks him through it until Even’s whimpers turn almost painful. Then he peels the condom off and drops it on the floor, too exhausted to find a bin.

“Come here,” Even pants, patting Isak’s head.

Isak goes willingly, attaches himself to Even’s side and kisses him. Even doesn’t even make a face, although Isak knows he has to taste like rubber.   

“You’re so fucking good,” Even sighs.

“Also really fucking hard,” Isak says and pushes his dick against Even’s thigh, smears the precome there.

Even laughs and closes his hand around Isak.

It only takes two quick strokes for Isak to come.

 

***

 

For the second day in a row Isak wakes up trapped between Even and the wall.

Even’s awake already, looking at him with the softest, most tender look on his face. It’s almost too much, and Isak looks down, feels his cheeks turn pink.

He has never been looked at like that.

“Morning,” Even says and runs a hand through Isak’s hair.

“Mhmm,” Isak mumbles and tries to stretch a little. “What time is it?”

“Almost ten,” Even replies.

“Okay.”

The light outside is gray. The steady rhythm of raindrops hitting the roof could be enough to lull Isak back to sleep.

“You have some messages on your phone,” Even says. “I didn’t mean to look, but I thought it was mine at first.”

“Okay,” Isak says again.

Even gives him the phone and Isak swipes it open, tries to get his eyes to focus.

There’s a message from Marte. It’s a picture of him and Even sitting in the corner at Legal. They’re looking at each other like they’re the only two people in the world. Even looks serious, thoughtful, and Isak is biting his lip, looking up to Even through his lashes. And it’s like a punch to his gut, because he has never seen himself looking that happy.

And he has never seen himself as beautiful, but in that picture he is.

He isn’t sure, but he thinks it’s taken right before they kissed. Marte has captioned the photo with a long line of exclamation marks.

“What are you smiling at?” Even asks.

Isak hands the phone wordlessly to Even, looks at how Even lights up when he sees the picture.

“It’s a nice photo,” Even says. He smiles the soft, small smile of his. The one Isak remembers from before. The one he can feel in his bones.

“Would it be weird if I posted it on instagram?” Isak asks.

Because he really loves that photo. He’s itching to make the world see that he can be happy.

“No,” Even says, strokes the side of Isak’s face. “It wouldn’t.”

Isak pulls up the app and uploads the pic, tries some filters but none of them look right.

He hesitates a little with the caption, can’t think of anything good. In the end he tags Marte as a photographer and adds _#nofilter_ in the last minute.

Then he posts it.

He doesn’t want to see the reactions right away, so he turns the phone upside down on the bed, burrows closer to Even and tries to hide his face in the slightly sweaty, slightly greasy hair.

“I like you,” he whispers.

Because now he can say it. Now he can finally say it.

Even laughs and pats Isak’s hair. “I like you too,” he says. “A lot.”

 

***

 

This time when Eskild calls, it doesn’t surprise Isak. He kind of knows what’s coming. It doesn’t stop the tiny hint of dread spreading through him, though.

“Hello?” he answers and winces at how jittery it sounds.

“Hello my lovely baby gay,” Eskild says. Nothing in his voice betrays what he thinks.

“Yeah, hi. What’s up?”

“I was just –,” Eskild starts. “Is this a good moment for you to talk?”

Isak glances at Even who’s making them coffee.

“I don’t know,” he says, because he doesn’t.

“Okay,” Eskild exhales. “But are you happy?”

“Yes,” Isak says. Because _that_ he does know.

“And you two have talked about things?” Eskild wants to know.

“Yes,” Isak says again, almost sighs. He can hear the smile in his own voice.

“That’s good,” Eskild says.

Isak can hear the smile in his voice, too.

“We were about to drink coffee, actually,” he says.

“So it’s a we now, huh?”

“Mh-mm,” Isak hums, “but I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay,” Eskild replies.

Isak ends the call and goes to Even, wraps his arms around Even’s waist from behind and presses small kisses on the junction between his neck and shoulder.

Even makes a happy, content sound and turns around in Isak’s arms, pecking Isak on the lips.

“Nice,” he says grinning, “but you’re not going to get sandwiches with your coffee if you don’t let me finish making them.”

 

***

 

While they drink their coffee, Isak takes his phone and looks through the likes and comments on his instagram post.

There are a lot of them. Marte has commented with another string of exclamation marks and Oda with heart emojis. Magnus has written _wtf dude_ , and Jonas is just giving a thumbs up, because that’s what he always does.

_Cute_ , says Noora. And then there’s a reply from Abdi. _Not that cute when you sit right next to them._

There is one comment that makes Isak stop and scroll back. He stares at it.

**@therealsanabakkoush** _finally_

He doesn’t know what it means. But it’s from Sana.

It has to be something good.

 

***

 

Isak glances at Even sitting on the opposite side of the table, sketching something with a hint of smile on his face, his coffee long forgotten and gone cold. His brows furrow when he stops and just looks at the paper in front of him. And when he picks up the pencil again and tries to focus, the tip of his tongue comes out.

It’s probably the cutest thing Isak has ever seen.

As if sensing Isak’s eyes on him, Even looks up and smiles. Wordlessly he slides the paper over the table and nods for Isak to take a look.

It’s a drawing with two panels. On the left panel there is a group of boys that look very much like Isak, Jonas and Magnus. They’re laughing at something. Further away there is one more boy, dressed in a jean jacket and looking at the group with a wistful expression. The thought bubble above his head is filled with hearts.

_This universe, autumn 2016_ , it says on top of the panel.

The second panel is a drawing of the picture Marte took of them at Legal, the two of them completely focused on each other, lost in their own world.

The caption makes Isak’s stomach flip, his chest tight.

_Still in this universe, spring 2021._

Still here. They both are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I’m going to put a sappy thank you note here. So here we go: 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read this, commented and given kudos. You’re all so amazing <3
> 
> This fic wouldn’t exist without [Imminentinertia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imminentinertia/pseuds/imminentinertia), who has been an amazing cheerleader & beta ever since I sent her the first draft and asked if I should delete the whole thing. She only made me delete like five paragraphs!
> 
> Also, I have most likely been influenced by [Vesperthine’s](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vesperthine/pseuds/vesperthine) beautiful, beautiful [big bang fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13827030/chapters/31799397) – both consciously and unconsciously – because I was betaing & reading it over and over around the same time I started writing this. 
> 
> I’m on [tumblr](http://tristealven.tumblr.com), if you want to see how pretentious I’m irl. (Shut up, tumblr is real life)


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